Many consider him as the man who embodies the epitome of "Frenchness". A figure who, 200 years after his death, is still held as an example of the glories of France.
In this episode, we'll talk about the rise and fall of Napoleon, the establishment of the French empire, and Napoleon's complex legacy.
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on July 14th.
[00:00:26] If you’re French, you already know why this is an important day. Even if you’re not French, you may well know.
[00:00:33] It’s La fête nationale française, the National Day of France, or Bastille Day as it’s known in the English-speaking world.
[00:00:41] So today, on this most French of days, we are going to talk about a man who, to many, is the epitome of Frenchness, a man who is still held as an example of the glories of France 200 years after his death.
[00:00:56] We are talking, of course, about Napoleon.
[00:01:00] OK then, the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:06] On Sunday the 18th of June, 1815, near the Belgian village of Waterloo, at around 8pm in the evening, a 45-year-old French general took stock of his surroundings.
[00:01:20] He saw the bodies of his soldiers strewn across the fields.
[00:01:24] Horses, bloodied corpses, smoke billowing from burning farmhouses.
[00:01:31] He heard the cries of the retreating French army, thrown into chaos as the soldiers ran for their lives from the advancing enemy.
[00:01:40] 111 days earlier, this very same French general had escaped from the island of Elba, raised an army, and declared himself as Emperor of France for the second time.
[00:01:53] His reign wouldn’t last for long.
[00:01:56] Just days after this final, decisive defeat, Napoleon would be exiled for good to St Helena, an island a 9-week boat trip away from France.
[00:02:08] Less than six years later he would be dead, a few months after his 51st birthday.
[00:02:15] He might have lived a relatively short life, even by 19th century standards, but there are few people in French history who have had such an impact on the country’s national psyche, few people who are held up to this very day as models to emulate.
[00:02:33] Given this, it might surprise you to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was not born Napoleon Bonaparte, he was born Napoleone Buonaparte, he had an Italian, not a French name.
[00:02:47] The reason for this all lies in his Corsican heritage, the fact that he was from Corsica.
[00:02:54] Corsica, in case you need a reminder, is an island in the Mediterranean that lies between Italy and France. There are two large islands between Italy and France, one above the other.
[00:03:07] Corsica is the northern one, and Sardinia is the southern one.
[00:03:12] Both islands, in fact, are much closer to Italy than France. In Corsica’s case, it’s very close to Italy, just 85km from the Italian mainland but 145 km from France.
[00:03:28] Now, Corsica today is part of France, and Sardinia is part of Italy, but, as you might expect, it hasn't always been this way, and control of these two islands has varied over the years.
[00:03:44] And indeed, Napoleon’s early life and ideals were characterised by this tension between France, Italy, and a sense of Corsican independence.
[00:03:58] When he was born, in 1769, Corsica was an independent state. It had gained independence from the kingdom of Genoa, a kingdom of Italy, in 1755, but this only lasted for 14 years before the island was conquered by the French and turned into a province of France.
[00:04:19] And the Corsicans, the people of Corsica were looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:25] They were considered to be barbarous, an inferior, uncivilised island people. There are, as you might imagine, still some traces of the same sentiments in modern France, but 250 years ago it was much more extreme.
[00:04:43] And this was something that the young Napoleon felt intensely, this sense not only of being different, but of being looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:55] For starters, he couldn’t speak French properly, and only learned the language when he moved to the mainland at the age of 9, after his father had won him a scholarship to study in France.
[00:05:08] For his entire life he would speak French with a thick Corsican accent, and reportedly never learned to write French properly.
[00:05:17] So, perhaps a brief language-learning motivational lesson we can take from this is that if having a strange accent and not knowing how to spell properly didn’t stop Napoleon from conquering most of Europe, it shouldn’t stop you from achieving whatever you want to do.
[00:05:33] Right, back to the subject at hand.
[00:05:36] From an early age, Napoleon was pro-Corsican independence, he wanted his homeland to be liberated from its French oppressors, as he saw them.
[00:05:47] From an early age, he showed his talents as a leader, able to group his friends around a mission and inspire others.
[00:05:56] His first step career-wise, after finishing normal school, would be to enrol at the famous École Militaire, the military school in Paris, from which he would be the first Corsican to graduate.
[00:06:10] This was in 1785, a mere four years before revolution would break out.
[00:06:17] He would prove himself to be a talented young soldier, but idealistically he was in a difficult position.
[00:06:25] See, his first political ambition in life was not becoming the emperor of France or European domination; it was the liberation of Corsica from the French.
[00:06:36] He asked for a leave of absence from the army to return to Corsica, which was granted. But after he returned to his homeland and saw the situation on the ground, his opinion changed.
[00:06:51] He started to sympathise with the French, thinking that this French "oppression" wasn't as bad as he had previously thought, and he actually started to oppose independence,
[00:07:03] it was about this time that he changed his name. No longer was he Napoleone Buonaparte, pro-Corsican independence supporter; this was Napoleon Bonaparte, French sympathiser. As you might imagine, this didn't make him particularly popular in his homeland, and he had to flee from the island, seeking refuge in France.
[00:07:29] And it would be in France, during the period known as the French Revolutionary Wars, that he would make his name.
[00:07:38] As a quick very brief reminder of what was going on here, the French Revolution started in 1789, then for a 10-year-period from 1792 to 1802 the French army fought against the monarchies of Europe, who had looked at the activities of the French revolutionaries and thought, “hmm, we don’t want to meet the same fate as our French cousins”, and had declared war on France.
[00:08:05] We are going to skip over most of the detail of what happened here, but suffice it to say that it was in this period that Napoleon distinguished himself to such an extent that he became general at the age of 24, then First Consul of France, essentially ruler of France, in 1799, at the age of 30.
[00:08:27] So, I hope you’ll forgive me for having sped through that so quickly, but this is kind of just the start for our young hero, or at least the subject of this episode if you disagree with him being described as a hero.
[00:08:41] By November of 1799 he was in command of the country that he had hated as a young boy, a country awash with revolutionary spirit, the first country in modern Europe to do away with its monarch through a national revolution.
[00:08:56] It must have been exciting, but nerve-wracking at the same time. On the one hand, he was incredibly popular, being seen by the French public as a genius military leader who had led the country to countless military victories. On the other hand, he had seen what had happened to the last rulers of France - they had lost their heads - so he must have been quietly cautious about his next steps.
[00:09:23] And his actions do suggest a certain level of caution. His rule has been described by one prominent historian as "dictatorship by plebiscite", essentially it was a dictatorship, but one in which people had a theoretical vote.
[00:09:41] In any case, his actions soon started to resemble the actions of the unelected monarchs who had felt the cold steel of the guillotine. In 1804 he gave himself the title of Emperor of France, and the following year he also became King of Italy, which didn’t include all of Italy as we know it today, but just the majority of the northern part.
[00:10:05] All this time he continued to develop the French army. Remember, Napoleon was first and foremost a soldier; he had joined the military academy at the age of 16, he had distinguished himself as a military commander, and he was well-known as a tactical genius.
[00:10:24] We’ll come to look at the extent to which this is true shortly, but it’s undeniable that he built up the ranks of the French army and turned it into a well-oiled machine.
[00:10:36] He needed to, as there was still the threat of the British, the Austrians, and the Prussians. And closer to home, not only were there the Royalists, people who had previously supported the French royal family, but also those who believed that Napoleon’s ambitions were leading the country in a dangerous direction.
[00:10:59] He might have had his critics, but for an almost 10 year period, from around 1803 through to 1812, it seemed like Napoleon could do little wrong from a military perspective at least.
[00:11:13] He was hailed as a strategic genius after defeating the Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz in 1805 in a battle where he tricked his adversaries perfectly and ended up inflicting huge damage.
[00:11:28] And time after time, his military strategies brought the French army victory after victory on the battlefield.
[00:11:37] Fast forward to 1812, this Corsican 43-year-old effectively controlled Western continental Europe, with the exception of Portugal, which was a British ally.
[00:11:49] Up until then, with a few exceptions, such as the Battle of Trafalgar, he could do no wrong. His tactics and military genius had led to the French empire controlling the European continent.
[00:12:03] Napoleon, by this stage, was drinking his own Kool-Aid, he believed in his own genius just as much as the next man. He had hunches and intuitions, he had ideas about what should be done. He might listen to his advisors, but it was always he who made the final decision.
[00:12:23] But, to quote Proverbs, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall". In other words, pride comes before a fall.
[00:12:33] And this fall, for Napoleon and for the country he had come to call his own, came in June of 1812, with his decision to march East, into Russia.
[00:12:45] As the French army marched into Russia, they weren’t confronted by a proud and fierce army or violent resistance. There were battles along the way, but most of all they were confronted by…nothing. The Russian army simply retreated east, drawing the French army further and further into Russia and further and further away from supplies and reinforcements in France.
[00:13:11] Along the way, the Russian army destroyed supplies that could possibly be used by the advancing French army. And when the French army arrived all the way to Moscow, almost 3,000 kilometres from Paris, they found the city not just practically deserted, but on fire.
[00:13:31] They had conquered the Russian capital but…there was nobody there and the place was burning to the ground.
[00:13:39] It’s almost like a philosophical question: have you really captured a capital city if there is nothing there?
[00:13:47] Soon enough, it became a very real question for Napoleon and his troops.
[00:13:53] On October 19th, 1812, with winter approaching, very limited supplies, a demoralised and unruly army and a long way back to Paris, the French army left the ashes of Moscow. It was still over 100,000 men strong, but these men were tired, homesick, hungry, and increasingly cold. Not exactly in prime condition for fighting.
[00:14:22] And as they started the long march back, and with the temperature dropping, their condition only worsened. Horses died of starvation or were killed for their meat. Tens of thousands of soldiers also died of starvation, exhaustion, hypothermia or a combination of all three. Others were killed or taken prisoner by Russian peasants.
[00:14:48] The Russian army barely had to fight; obstructing the French retreat and destroying all potential supply lines was enough.
[00:14:57] The result was the complete and utter destruction of the French army.
[00:15:03] Now, historians have differing views on the numbers here, but it’s estimated that anywhere from 400 to 600,000 French soldiers marched into Russia in June of 1812.
[00:15:17] And how many returned? It’s hard to say, because some simply deserted, but some estimates have as few as 10,000 making it back alive. For a man who had prided himself as being a tactical genius, this was a tactical disaster, a colossal miscalculation.
[00:15:43] As you will know if you’ve spent much time reading about this period, or if you’ve read War and Peace, let’s say, there are countless theories and hypotheses about why Napoleon made such a miscalculation, and what could have been done to avoid this, but the end result was the worst and most humiliating military defeat of his career.
[00:16:07] A year later he would suffer another defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, against Austrian, Prussian, Swedish and Russian forces, and he would be forced to abdicate his position as Emperor of France, the monarchy was restored to France, and Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, a tiny island sandwiched between his homeland of Corsica and mainland Italy.
[00:16:31] This was in April of 1814, yet this was not the end for our hero, or villain, depending on your point of view.
[00:16:40] The following year he managed to escape from Elba with a small crew of 1,000 supporters. He marched on Paris, was welcomed with open arms, as the new Bourbon monarchy was not particularly well-liked, and on 20th of March 1815, he proclaimed himself Emperor of France for a second time.
[00:17:01] It wouldn’t last long.
[00:17:04] He had raised an army that numbered around 200,000, and he marched northwards to try to split up the British army, which was coming from the north, and the Prussians, who were coming from the East.
[00:17:17] This culminated, on the 18th of June, 1815, with the Battle of Waterloo, as you heard at the start of the episode. It was decisive, but not in the way Napoleon had imagined. The French army was defeated once and for all, Napoleon was forced to abdicate yet again, and on the 15th of July 1815 he surrendered to the British.
[00:17:45] The British decided to send him as far away as they possibly could, to the island of St Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
[00:17:54] From here there was no escape.
[00:17:57] And the conditions were a far cry from the luxurious ones he had enjoyed as French Emperor at his palace in Fontainebleau, outside Paris.
[00:18:06] It was cold, damp, and windy.
[00:18:10] Napoleon spent his days writing his memoirs, playing cards, and drafting a book about Julius Caesar. It seemed that he still dreamed of a return. He was allowed to hold dinner parties, but every man who came to the dinner party had to wear military uniform, almost as if he simply didn’t want to admit that he was no longer in charge of the most powerful military force in Europe.
[00:18:37] And on the 5th of May 1821, at the age of 51, he died, with the official verdict being stomach cancer.
[00:18:46] As to his legacy, well there is a lot to unpack.
[00:18:52] We didn’t have the chance to talk about this yet, but he laid the foundations of the modern French state and its institutions. The civil code that he set out is still the model for modern France, and parts of it are used in parts of Belgian, Polish and Italian law.
[00:19:10] In the popular imagination, he is an inspirational character, someone who epitomises French spirit.
[00:19:19] Yet, like anyone who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, he is not without his fair share of critics. He has been called “a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler”, an enabler of slavery, and a dangerous tyrant.
[00:19:41] Undeniably, had he not sent his men into Russia, hundreds of thousands of his own people’s lives would have been saved, let alone the Russian and Austrian casualties.
[00:19:52] But in France, he remains an incredibly popular character, albeit one with clear flaws.
[00:20:01] In 2021 the French president, Emanuel Macron, clearly laid out the difficulties of his legacy, saying “Napoleon was both ogre and eagle, Alexander and Nero … the soul of the world and the demon of Europe,”
[00:20:20] Whatever your view on Napoleon, it’s hard to deny that he lived an impressive life, in the literal sense of making a mark on the world.
[00:20:30] He was a man with deep convictions in his own ability, a man who believed he was unstoppable.
[00:20:37] So, we will leave this episode with a quote from Napoleon that, depending on your opinion of him, underlines his egomania or simply demonstrates the confidence that one has to have to achieve what he did.
[00:20:52] “Impossible”, he said, “is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools”.
[00:21:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:21:08] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:21:12] This was actually part two of a three-part mini-series to mark Bastille Day, July 14th.
[00:21:18] Part one was on Joan of Arc, the famous French freedom fighter who was burned at the stake, and Part Three will be on the Dreyfus Affair, the political scandal that shocked the country at the end of the 19th century.
[00:21:32] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:37] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on July 14th.
[00:00:26] If you’re French, you already know why this is an important day. Even if you’re not French, you may well know.
[00:00:33] It’s La fête nationale française, the National Day of France, or Bastille Day as it’s known in the English-speaking world.
[00:00:41] So today, on this most French of days, we are going to talk about a man who, to many, is the epitome of Frenchness, a man who is still held as an example of the glories of France 200 years after his death.
[00:00:56] We are talking, of course, about Napoleon.
[00:01:00] OK then, the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:06] On Sunday the 18th of June, 1815, near the Belgian village of Waterloo, at around 8pm in the evening, a 45-year-old French general took stock of his surroundings.
[00:01:20] He saw the bodies of his soldiers strewn across the fields.
[00:01:24] Horses, bloodied corpses, smoke billowing from burning farmhouses.
[00:01:31] He heard the cries of the retreating French army, thrown into chaos as the soldiers ran for their lives from the advancing enemy.
[00:01:40] 111 days earlier, this very same French general had escaped from the island of Elba, raised an army, and declared himself as Emperor of France for the second time.
[00:01:53] His reign wouldn’t last for long.
[00:01:56] Just days after this final, decisive defeat, Napoleon would be exiled for good to St Helena, an island a 9-week boat trip away from France.
[00:02:08] Less than six years later he would be dead, a few months after his 51st birthday.
[00:02:15] He might have lived a relatively short life, even by 19th century standards, but there are few people in French history who have had such an impact on the country’s national psyche, few people who are held up to this very day as models to emulate.
[00:02:33] Given this, it might surprise you to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was not born Napoleon Bonaparte, he was born Napoleone Buonaparte, he had an Italian, not a French name.
[00:02:47] The reason for this all lies in his Corsican heritage, the fact that he was from Corsica.
[00:02:54] Corsica, in case you need a reminder, is an island in the Mediterranean that lies between Italy and France. There are two large islands between Italy and France, one above the other.
[00:03:07] Corsica is the northern one, and Sardinia is the southern one.
[00:03:12] Both islands, in fact, are much closer to Italy than France. In Corsica’s case, it’s very close to Italy, just 85km from the Italian mainland but 145 km from France.
[00:03:28] Now, Corsica today is part of France, and Sardinia is part of Italy, but, as you might expect, it hasn't always been this way, and control of these two islands has varied over the years.
[00:03:44] And indeed, Napoleon’s early life and ideals were characterised by this tension between France, Italy, and a sense of Corsican independence.
[00:03:58] When he was born, in 1769, Corsica was an independent state. It had gained independence from the kingdom of Genoa, a kingdom of Italy, in 1755, but this only lasted for 14 years before the island was conquered by the French and turned into a province of France.
[00:04:19] And the Corsicans, the people of Corsica were looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:25] They were considered to be barbarous, an inferior, uncivilised island people. There are, as you might imagine, still some traces of the same sentiments in modern France, but 250 years ago it was much more extreme.
[00:04:43] And this was something that the young Napoleon felt intensely, this sense not only of being different, but of being looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:55] For starters, he couldn’t speak French properly, and only learned the language when he moved to the mainland at the age of 9, after his father had won him a scholarship to study in France.
[00:05:08] For his entire life he would speak French with a thick Corsican accent, and reportedly never learned to write French properly.
[00:05:17] So, perhaps a brief language-learning motivational lesson we can take from this is that if having a strange accent and not knowing how to spell properly didn’t stop Napoleon from conquering most of Europe, it shouldn’t stop you from achieving whatever you want to do.
[00:05:33] Right, back to the subject at hand.
[00:05:36] From an early age, Napoleon was pro-Corsican independence, he wanted his homeland to be liberated from its French oppressors, as he saw them.
[00:05:47] From an early age, he showed his talents as a leader, able to group his friends around a mission and inspire others.
[00:05:56] His first step career-wise, after finishing normal school, would be to enrol at the famous École Militaire, the military school in Paris, from which he would be the first Corsican to graduate.
[00:06:10] This was in 1785, a mere four years before revolution would break out.
[00:06:17] He would prove himself to be a talented young soldier, but idealistically he was in a difficult position.
[00:06:25] See, his first political ambition in life was not becoming the emperor of France or European domination; it was the liberation of Corsica from the French.
[00:06:36] He asked for a leave of absence from the army to return to Corsica, which was granted. But after he returned to his homeland and saw the situation on the ground, his opinion changed.
[00:06:51] He started to sympathise with the French, thinking that this French "oppression" wasn't as bad as he had previously thought, and he actually started to oppose independence,
[00:07:03] it was about this time that he changed his name. No longer was he Napoleone Buonaparte, pro-Corsican independence supporter; this was Napoleon Bonaparte, French sympathiser. As you might imagine, this didn't make him particularly popular in his homeland, and he had to flee from the island, seeking refuge in France.
[00:07:29] And it would be in France, during the period known as the French Revolutionary Wars, that he would make his name.
[00:07:38] As a quick very brief reminder of what was going on here, the French Revolution started in 1789, then for a 10-year-period from 1792 to 1802 the French army fought against the monarchies of Europe, who had looked at the activities of the French revolutionaries and thought, “hmm, we don’t want to meet the same fate as our French cousins”, and had declared war on France.
[00:08:05] We are going to skip over most of the detail of what happened here, but suffice it to say that it was in this period that Napoleon distinguished himself to such an extent that he became general at the age of 24, then First Consul of France, essentially ruler of France, in 1799, at the age of 30.
[00:08:27] So, I hope you’ll forgive me for having sped through that so quickly, but this is kind of just the start for our young hero, or at least the subject of this episode if you disagree with him being described as a hero.
[00:08:41] By November of 1799 he was in command of the country that he had hated as a young boy, a country awash with revolutionary spirit, the first country in modern Europe to do away with its monarch through a national revolution.
[00:08:56] It must have been exciting, but nerve-wracking at the same time. On the one hand, he was incredibly popular, being seen by the French public as a genius military leader who had led the country to countless military victories. On the other hand, he had seen what had happened to the last rulers of France - they had lost their heads - so he must have been quietly cautious about his next steps.
[00:09:23] And his actions do suggest a certain level of caution. His rule has been described by one prominent historian as "dictatorship by plebiscite", essentially it was a dictatorship, but one in which people had a theoretical vote.
[00:09:41] In any case, his actions soon started to resemble the actions of the unelected monarchs who had felt the cold steel of the guillotine. In 1804 he gave himself the title of Emperor of France, and the following year he also became King of Italy, which didn’t include all of Italy as we know it today, but just the majority of the northern part.
[00:10:05] All this time he continued to develop the French army. Remember, Napoleon was first and foremost a soldier; he had joined the military academy at the age of 16, he had distinguished himself as a military commander, and he was well-known as a tactical genius.
[00:10:24] We’ll come to look at the extent to which this is true shortly, but it’s undeniable that he built up the ranks of the French army and turned it into a well-oiled machine.
[00:10:36] He needed to, as there was still the threat of the British, the Austrians, and the Prussians. And closer to home, not only were there the Royalists, people who had previously supported the French royal family, but also those who believed that Napoleon’s ambitions were leading the country in a dangerous direction.
[00:10:59] He might have had his critics, but for an almost 10 year period, from around 1803 through to 1812, it seemed like Napoleon could do little wrong from a military perspective at least.
[00:11:13] He was hailed as a strategic genius after defeating the Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz in 1805 in a battle where he tricked his adversaries perfectly and ended up inflicting huge damage.
[00:11:28] And time after time, his military strategies brought the French army victory after victory on the battlefield.
[00:11:37] Fast forward to 1812, this Corsican 43-year-old effectively controlled Western continental Europe, with the exception of Portugal, which was a British ally.
[00:11:49] Up until then, with a few exceptions, such as the Battle of Trafalgar, he could do no wrong. His tactics and military genius had led to the French empire controlling the European continent.
[00:12:03] Napoleon, by this stage, was drinking his own Kool-Aid, he believed in his own genius just as much as the next man. He had hunches and intuitions, he had ideas about what should be done. He might listen to his advisors, but it was always he who made the final decision.
[00:12:23] But, to quote Proverbs, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall". In other words, pride comes before a fall.
[00:12:33] And this fall, for Napoleon and for the country he had come to call his own, came in June of 1812, with his decision to march East, into Russia.
[00:12:45] As the French army marched into Russia, they weren’t confronted by a proud and fierce army or violent resistance. There were battles along the way, but most of all they were confronted by…nothing. The Russian army simply retreated east, drawing the French army further and further into Russia and further and further away from supplies and reinforcements in France.
[00:13:11] Along the way, the Russian army destroyed supplies that could possibly be used by the advancing French army. And when the French army arrived all the way to Moscow, almost 3,000 kilometres from Paris, they found the city not just practically deserted, but on fire.
[00:13:31] They had conquered the Russian capital but…there was nobody there and the place was burning to the ground.
[00:13:39] It’s almost like a philosophical question: have you really captured a capital city if there is nothing there?
[00:13:47] Soon enough, it became a very real question for Napoleon and his troops.
[00:13:53] On October 19th, 1812, with winter approaching, very limited supplies, a demoralised and unruly army and a long way back to Paris, the French army left the ashes of Moscow. It was still over 100,000 men strong, but these men were tired, homesick, hungry, and increasingly cold. Not exactly in prime condition for fighting.
[00:14:22] And as they started the long march back, and with the temperature dropping, their condition only worsened. Horses died of starvation or were killed for their meat. Tens of thousands of soldiers also died of starvation, exhaustion, hypothermia or a combination of all three. Others were killed or taken prisoner by Russian peasants.
[00:14:48] The Russian army barely had to fight; obstructing the French retreat and destroying all potential supply lines was enough.
[00:14:57] The result was the complete and utter destruction of the French army.
[00:15:03] Now, historians have differing views on the numbers here, but it’s estimated that anywhere from 400 to 600,000 French soldiers marched into Russia in June of 1812.
[00:15:17] And how many returned? It’s hard to say, because some simply deserted, but some estimates have as few as 10,000 making it back alive. For a man who had prided himself as being a tactical genius, this was a tactical disaster, a colossal miscalculation.
[00:15:43] As you will know if you’ve spent much time reading about this period, or if you’ve read War and Peace, let’s say, there are countless theories and hypotheses about why Napoleon made such a miscalculation, and what could have been done to avoid this, but the end result was the worst and most humiliating military defeat of his career.
[00:16:07] A year later he would suffer another defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, against Austrian, Prussian, Swedish and Russian forces, and he would be forced to abdicate his position as Emperor of France, the monarchy was restored to France, and Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, a tiny island sandwiched between his homeland of Corsica and mainland Italy.
[00:16:31] This was in April of 1814, yet this was not the end for our hero, or villain, depending on your point of view.
[00:16:40] The following year he managed to escape from Elba with a small crew of 1,000 supporters. He marched on Paris, was welcomed with open arms, as the new Bourbon monarchy was not particularly well-liked, and on 20th of March 1815, he proclaimed himself Emperor of France for a second time.
[00:17:01] It wouldn’t last long.
[00:17:04] He had raised an army that numbered around 200,000, and he marched northwards to try to split up the British army, which was coming from the north, and the Prussians, who were coming from the East.
[00:17:17] This culminated, on the 18th of June, 1815, with the Battle of Waterloo, as you heard at the start of the episode. It was decisive, but not in the way Napoleon had imagined. The French army was defeated once and for all, Napoleon was forced to abdicate yet again, and on the 15th of July 1815 he surrendered to the British.
[00:17:45] The British decided to send him as far away as they possibly could, to the island of St Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
[00:17:54] From here there was no escape.
[00:17:57] And the conditions were a far cry from the luxurious ones he had enjoyed as French Emperor at his palace in Fontainebleau, outside Paris.
[00:18:06] It was cold, damp, and windy.
[00:18:10] Napoleon spent his days writing his memoirs, playing cards, and drafting a book about Julius Caesar. It seemed that he still dreamed of a return. He was allowed to hold dinner parties, but every man who came to the dinner party had to wear military uniform, almost as if he simply didn’t want to admit that he was no longer in charge of the most powerful military force in Europe.
[00:18:37] And on the 5th of May 1821, at the age of 51, he died, with the official verdict being stomach cancer.
[00:18:46] As to his legacy, well there is a lot to unpack.
[00:18:52] We didn’t have the chance to talk about this yet, but he laid the foundations of the modern French state and its institutions. The civil code that he set out is still the model for modern France, and parts of it are used in parts of Belgian, Polish and Italian law.
[00:19:10] In the popular imagination, he is an inspirational character, someone who epitomises French spirit.
[00:19:19] Yet, like anyone who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, he is not without his fair share of critics. He has been called “a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler”, an enabler of slavery, and a dangerous tyrant.
[00:19:41] Undeniably, had he not sent his men into Russia, hundreds of thousands of his own people’s lives would have been saved, let alone the Russian and Austrian casualties.
[00:19:52] But in France, he remains an incredibly popular character, albeit one with clear flaws.
[00:20:01] In 2021 the French president, Emanuel Macron, clearly laid out the difficulties of his legacy, saying “Napoleon was both ogre and eagle, Alexander and Nero … the soul of the world and the demon of Europe,”
[00:20:20] Whatever your view on Napoleon, it’s hard to deny that he lived an impressive life, in the literal sense of making a mark on the world.
[00:20:30] He was a man with deep convictions in his own ability, a man who believed he was unstoppable.
[00:20:37] So, we will leave this episode with a quote from Napoleon that, depending on your opinion of him, underlines his egomania or simply demonstrates the confidence that one has to have to achieve what he did.
[00:20:52] “Impossible”, he said, “is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools”.
[00:21:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:21:08] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:21:12] This was actually part two of a three-part mini-series to mark Bastille Day, July 14th.
[00:21:18] Part one was on Joan of Arc, the famous French freedom fighter who was burned at the stake, and Part Three will be on the Dreyfus Affair, the political scandal that shocked the country at the end of the 19th century.
[00:21:32] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:37] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:00:05] Hello, hello hello, and welcome to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:00:11] The show where you can listen to fascinating stories, and learn weird and wonderful things about the world at the same time as improving your English.
[00:00:20] I'm Alastair Budge, and this episode is going to be released on July 14th.
[00:00:26] If you’re French, you already know why this is an important day. Even if you’re not French, you may well know.
[00:00:33] It’s La fête nationale française, the National Day of France, or Bastille Day as it’s known in the English-speaking world.
[00:00:41] So today, on this most French of days, we are going to talk about a man who, to many, is the epitome of Frenchness, a man who is still held as an example of the glories of France 200 years after his death.
[00:00:56] We are talking, of course, about Napoleon.
[00:01:00] OK then, the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:01:06] On Sunday the 18th of June, 1815, near the Belgian village of Waterloo, at around 8pm in the evening, a 45-year-old French general took stock of his surroundings.
[00:01:20] He saw the bodies of his soldiers strewn across the fields.
[00:01:24] Horses, bloodied corpses, smoke billowing from burning farmhouses.
[00:01:31] He heard the cries of the retreating French army, thrown into chaos as the soldiers ran for their lives from the advancing enemy.
[00:01:40] 111 days earlier, this very same French general had escaped from the island of Elba, raised an army, and declared himself as Emperor of France for the second time.
[00:01:53] His reign wouldn’t last for long.
[00:01:56] Just days after this final, decisive defeat, Napoleon would be exiled for good to St Helena, an island a 9-week boat trip away from France.
[00:02:08] Less than six years later he would be dead, a few months after his 51st birthday.
[00:02:15] He might have lived a relatively short life, even by 19th century standards, but there are few people in French history who have had such an impact on the country’s national psyche, few people who are held up to this very day as models to emulate.
[00:02:33] Given this, it might surprise you to learn that Napoleon Bonaparte was not born Napoleon Bonaparte, he was born Napoleone Buonaparte, he had an Italian, not a French name.
[00:02:47] The reason for this all lies in his Corsican heritage, the fact that he was from Corsica.
[00:02:54] Corsica, in case you need a reminder, is an island in the Mediterranean that lies between Italy and France. There are two large islands between Italy and France, one above the other.
[00:03:07] Corsica is the northern one, and Sardinia is the southern one.
[00:03:12] Both islands, in fact, are much closer to Italy than France. In Corsica’s case, it’s very close to Italy, just 85km from the Italian mainland but 145 km from France.
[00:03:28] Now, Corsica today is part of France, and Sardinia is part of Italy, but, as you might expect, it hasn't always been this way, and control of these two islands has varied over the years.
[00:03:44] And indeed, Napoleon’s early life and ideals were characterised by this tension between France, Italy, and a sense of Corsican independence.
[00:03:58] When he was born, in 1769, Corsica was an independent state. It had gained independence from the kingdom of Genoa, a kingdom of Italy, in 1755, but this only lasted for 14 years before the island was conquered by the French and turned into a province of France.
[00:04:19] And the Corsicans, the people of Corsica were looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:25] They were considered to be barbarous, an inferior, uncivilised island people. There are, as you might imagine, still some traces of the same sentiments in modern France, but 250 years ago it was much more extreme.
[00:04:43] And this was something that the young Napoleon felt intensely, this sense not only of being different, but of being looked down upon by the mainland French.
[00:04:55] For starters, he couldn’t speak French properly, and only learned the language when he moved to the mainland at the age of 9, after his father had won him a scholarship to study in France.
[00:05:08] For his entire life he would speak French with a thick Corsican accent, and reportedly never learned to write French properly.
[00:05:17] So, perhaps a brief language-learning motivational lesson we can take from this is that if having a strange accent and not knowing how to spell properly didn’t stop Napoleon from conquering most of Europe, it shouldn’t stop you from achieving whatever you want to do.
[00:05:33] Right, back to the subject at hand.
[00:05:36] From an early age, Napoleon was pro-Corsican independence, he wanted his homeland to be liberated from its French oppressors, as he saw them.
[00:05:47] From an early age, he showed his talents as a leader, able to group his friends around a mission and inspire others.
[00:05:56] His first step career-wise, after finishing normal school, would be to enrol at the famous École Militaire, the military school in Paris, from which he would be the first Corsican to graduate.
[00:06:10] This was in 1785, a mere four years before revolution would break out.
[00:06:17] He would prove himself to be a talented young soldier, but idealistically he was in a difficult position.
[00:06:25] See, his first political ambition in life was not becoming the emperor of France or European domination; it was the liberation of Corsica from the French.
[00:06:36] He asked for a leave of absence from the army to return to Corsica, which was granted. But after he returned to his homeland and saw the situation on the ground, his opinion changed.
[00:06:51] He started to sympathise with the French, thinking that this French "oppression" wasn't as bad as he had previously thought, and he actually started to oppose independence,
[00:07:03] it was about this time that he changed his name. No longer was he Napoleone Buonaparte, pro-Corsican independence supporter; this was Napoleon Bonaparte, French sympathiser. As you might imagine, this didn't make him particularly popular in his homeland, and he had to flee from the island, seeking refuge in France.
[00:07:29] And it would be in France, during the period known as the French Revolutionary Wars, that he would make his name.
[00:07:38] As a quick very brief reminder of what was going on here, the French Revolution started in 1789, then for a 10-year-period from 1792 to 1802 the French army fought against the monarchies of Europe, who had looked at the activities of the French revolutionaries and thought, “hmm, we don’t want to meet the same fate as our French cousins”, and had declared war on France.
[00:08:05] We are going to skip over most of the detail of what happened here, but suffice it to say that it was in this period that Napoleon distinguished himself to such an extent that he became general at the age of 24, then First Consul of France, essentially ruler of France, in 1799, at the age of 30.
[00:08:27] So, I hope you’ll forgive me for having sped through that so quickly, but this is kind of just the start for our young hero, or at least the subject of this episode if you disagree with him being described as a hero.
[00:08:41] By November of 1799 he was in command of the country that he had hated as a young boy, a country awash with revolutionary spirit, the first country in modern Europe to do away with its monarch through a national revolution.
[00:08:56] It must have been exciting, but nerve-wracking at the same time. On the one hand, he was incredibly popular, being seen by the French public as a genius military leader who had led the country to countless military victories. On the other hand, he had seen what had happened to the last rulers of France - they had lost their heads - so he must have been quietly cautious about his next steps.
[00:09:23] And his actions do suggest a certain level of caution. His rule has been described by one prominent historian as "dictatorship by plebiscite", essentially it was a dictatorship, but one in which people had a theoretical vote.
[00:09:41] In any case, his actions soon started to resemble the actions of the unelected monarchs who had felt the cold steel of the guillotine. In 1804 he gave himself the title of Emperor of France, and the following year he also became King of Italy, which didn’t include all of Italy as we know it today, but just the majority of the northern part.
[00:10:05] All this time he continued to develop the French army. Remember, Napoleon was first and foremost a soldier; he had joined the military academy at the age of 16, he had distinguished himself as a military commander, and he was well-known as a tactical genius.
[00:10:24] We’ll come to look at the extent to which this is true shortly, but it’s undeniable that he built up the ranks of the French army and turned it into a well-oiled machine.
[00:10:36] He needed to, as there was still the threat of the British, the Austrians, and the Prussians. And closer to home, not only were there the Royalists, people who had previously supported the French royal family, but also those who believed that Napoleon’s ambitions were leading the country in a dangerous direction.
[00:10:59] He might have had his critics, but for an almost 10 year period, from around 1803 through to 1812, it seemed like Napoleon could do little wrong from a military perspective at least.
[00:11:13] He was hailed as a strategic genius after defeating the Russian-Austrian army at Austerlitz in 1805 in a battle where he tricked his adversaries perfectly and ended up inflicting huge damage.
[00:11:28] And time after time, his military strategies brought the French army victory after victory on the battlefield.
[00:11:37] Fast forward to 1812, this Corsican 43-year-old effectively controlled Western continental Europe, with the exception of Portugal, which was a British ally.
[00:11:49] Up until then, with a few exceptions, such as the Battle of Trafalgar, he could do no wrong. His tactics and military genius had led to the French empire controlling the European continent.
[00:12:03] Napoleon, by this stage, was drinking his own Kool-Aid, he believed in his own genius just as much as the next man. He had hunches and intuitions, he had ideas about what should be done. He might listen to his advisors, but it was always he who made the final decision.
[00:12:23] But, to quote Proverbs, "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall". In other words, pride comes before a fall.
[00:12:33] And this fall, for Napoleon and for the country he had come to call his own, came in June of 1812, with his decision to march East, into Russia.
[00:12:45] As the French army marched into Russia, they weren’t confronted by a proud and fierce army or violent resistance. There were battles along the way, but most of all they were confronted by…nothing. The Russian army simply retreated east, drawing the French army further and further into Russia and further and further away from supplies and reinforcements in France.
[00:13:11] Along the way, the Russian army destroyed supplies that could possibly be used by the advancing French army. And when the French army arrived all the way to Moscow, almost 3,000 kilometres from Paris, they found the city not just practically deserted, but on fire.
[00:13:31] They had conquered the Russian capital but…there was nobody there and the place was burning to the ground.
[00:13:39] It’s almost like a philosophical question: have you really captured a capital city if there is nothing there?
[00:13:47] Soon enough, it became a very real question for Napoleon and his troops.
[00:13:53] On October 19th, 1812, with winter approaching, very limited supplies, a demoralised and unruly army and a long way back to Paris, the French army left the ashes of Moscow. It was still over 100,000 men strong, but these men were tired, homesick, hungry, and increasingly cold. Not exactly in prime condition for fighting.
[00:14:22] And as they started the long march back, and with the temperature dropping, their condition only worsened. Horses died of starvation or were killed for their meat. Tens of thousands of soldiers also died of starvation, exhaustion, hypothermia or a combination of all three. Others were killed or taken prisoner by Russian peasants.
[00:14:48] The Russian army barely had to fight; obstructing the French retreat and destroying all potential supply lines was enough.
[00:14:57] The result was the complete and utter destruction of the French army.
[00:15:03] Now, historians have differing views on the numbers here, but it’s estimated that anywhere from 400 to 600,000 French soldiers marched into Russia in June of 1812.
[00:15:17] And how many returned? It’s hard to say, because some simply deserted, but some estimates have as few as 10,000 making it back alive. For a man who had prided himself as being a tactical genius, this was a tactical disaster, a colossal miscalculation.
[00:15:43] As you will know if you’ve spent much time reading about this period, or if you’ve read War and Peace, let’s say, there are countless theories and hypotheses about why Napoleon made such a miscalculation, and what could have been done to avoid this, but the end result was the worst and most humiliating military defeat of his career.
[00:16:07] A year later he would suffer another defeat at the Battle of Leipzig, against Austrian, Prussian, Swedish and Russian forces, and he would be forced to abdicate his position as Emperor of France, the monarchy was restored to France, and Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, a tiny island sandwiched between his homeland of Corsica and mainland Italy.
[00:16:31] This was in April of 1814, yet this was not the end for our hero, or villain, depending on your point of view.
[00:16:40] The following year he managed to escape from Elba with a small crew of 1,000 supporters. He marched on Paris, was welcomed with open arms, as the new Bourbon monarchy was not particularly well-liked, and on 20th of March 1815, he proclaimed himself Emperor of France for a second time.
[00:17:01] It wouldn’t last long.
[00:17:04] He had raised an army that numbered around 200,000, and he marched northwards to try to split up the British army, which was coming from the north, and the Prussians, who were coming from the East.
[00:17:17] This culminated, on the 18th of June, 1815, with the Battle of Waterloo, as you heard at the start of the episode. It was decisive, but not in the way Napoleon had imagined. The French army was defeated once and for all, Napoleon was forced to abdicate yet again, and on the 15th of July 1815 he surrendered to the British.
[00:17:45] The British decided to send him as far away as they possibly could, to the island of St Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
[00:17:54] From here there was no escape.
[00:17:57] And the conditions were a far cry from the luxurious ones he had enjoyed as French Emperor at his palace in Fontainebleau, outside Paris.
[00:18:06] It was cold, damp, and windy.
[00:18:10] Napoleon spent his days writing his memoirs, playing cards, and drafting a book about Julius Caesar. It seemed that he still dreamed of a return. He was allowed to hold dinner parties, but every man who came to the dinner party had to wear military uniform, almost as if he simply didn’t want to admit that he was no longer in charge of the most powerful military force in Europe.
[00:18:37] And on the 5th of May 1821, at the age of 51, he died, with the official verdict being stomach cancer.
[00:18:46] As to his legacy, well there is a lot to unpack.
[00:18:52] We didn’t have the chance to talk about this yet, but he laid the foundations of the modern French state and its institutions. The civil code that he set out is still the model for modern France, and parts of it are used in parts of Belgian, Polish and Italian law.
[00:19:10] In the popular imagination, he is an inspirational character, someone who epitomises French spirit.
[00:19:19] Yet, like anyone who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, he is not without his fair share of critics. He has been called “a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler”, an enabler of slavery, and a dangerous tyrant.
[00:19:41] Undeniably, had he not sent his men into Russia, hundreds of thousands of his own people’s lives would have been saved, let alone the Russian and Austrian casualties.
[00:19:52] But in France, he remains an incredibly popular character, albeit one with clear flaws.
[00:20:01] In 2021 the French president, Emanuel Macron, clearly laid out the difficulties of his legacy, saying “Napoleon was both ogre and eagle, Alexander and Nero … the soul of the world and the demon of Europe,”
[00:20:20] Whatever your view on Napoleon, it’s hard to deny that he lived an impressive life, in the literal sense of making a mark on the world.
[00:20:30] He was a man with deep convictions in his own ability, a man who believed he was unstoppable.
[00:20:37] So, we will leave this episode with a quote from Napoleon that, depending on your opinion of him, underlines his egomania or simply demonstrates the confidence that one has to have to achieve what he did.
[00:20:52] “Impossible”, he said, “is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools”.
[00:21:02] OK then, that is it for today's episode on Napoleon Bonaparte.
[00:21:08] I hope it's been an interesting one, and that you've learnt something new.
[00:21:12] This was actually part two of a three-part mini-series to mark Bastille Day, July 14th.
[00:21:18] Part one was on Joan of Arc, the famous French freedom fighter who was burned at the stake, and Part Three will be on the Dreyfus Affair, the political scandal that shocked the country at the end of the 19th century.
[00:21:32] You've been listening to English Learning for Curious Minds, by Leonardo English.
[00:21:37] I'm Alastair Budge, you stay safe, and I'll catch you in the next episode.
[END OF EPISODE]
