“Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests
“Europe Was at My Feet”: Napoleon’s Conquests
Napoleon revolutionized the art of war with tactics and strategies based on a highly mobile army. By 1812, he was ruling a European empire more extensive than any since ancient Rome (Map 20.1). Yet that empire had already begun to crumble, and with it went Napoleon’s power at home. Napoleon’s empire failed because it was based on a contradiction: Napoleon tried to reduce virtually all nations of Europe to the status of colonial dependents when Europe had long consisted of independent states. The result, inevitably, was a great upsurge in nationalist feeling that has dominated European politics to the present.
Figure 20.1: MAP 20.1 Napoleon’s Empire at Its Height, 1812
Figure 20.1: In 1812, Napoleon had at least nominal control of almost all of western Europe. Even before he made his fatal mistake of invading Russia, however, his authority had been undermined in Spain and seriously weakened in the Italian and German states. Still earlier, he had given up his dreams of a worldwide empire. French armies withdrew from Egypt in 1801 and from St. Domingue (Haiti) in 1802. In 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States.