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No directionNo direction• As the leaders of the French Revolution continued to come and go, each more radical than the one before him, a group needed to step up and take control.

No directionNo direction• This group called themselves the DirectoryDirectory, a five-person panel that tried to control the Revolution and to take control of France.

No directionNo direction• They were not able to do so.• The people of France needed a a strong and powerful leader who could promise to bring France back to the top of Europe.

No directionNo direction• That man was Napoleon Napoleon BonaparteBonaparte.

powerpower• Napoleon was a short, stubborn man from the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea.

powerpower• He was given a fine education and his love of reading helped him to achieve acceptance into the finest military schools in France.

powerpower• With this education, Napoleon was able to come in and quickly take control of the situation in a power vacuum in France.

controlcontrol• In order to gain control, he, his brother and two members of the government running France during the revolution, launched a

coup d’etatcoup d’etat.

controlcontrol• A coup d’etat happens when a government is suddenly changed or overthrown by a small group of people.

In chargeIn charge• Once he had control in France, he had a plebiscite, or vote of the people, in order to have them believe that they had actually chosen him as their leader.

In chargeIn charge• He established state schools, called lycees, that trained students to be government employees.

In chargeIn charge• The opportunity to go the lycees was open to anyone, which only increased his popularity with the people of France.

In chargeIn charge• He also put in place a system of laws called the Napoleonic Code, which gave France a set of laws that attempted to treat everyone equally.

In chargeIn charge• The problem with the code was

that it took away some of the basic rights that had been given to people under either the National Assembly or the Legislative Assembly.

In chargeIn charge• Now that Napoleon had taken control of the government in France, he decided it was time to make France a powerful nation again.

In chargeIn charge• The people of France made him almost a dictator and then “elected” him emperor of France because of the good things that he did for them.

expansionexpansion• Napoleon decided that it

would be a good idea to bring his way of life to all of the people of Europe and maybe the world.

expansionexpansion• He was able to recapture land

in North America that had been taken from France by Spain, but when he couldn’t hold on to it (because of problems in Haiti) he was forced to let it go.

expansionexpansion• Part of that land was sold to

the United States and became known as the Louisiana Purchase.

expansionexpansion• He decided to focus his

attention on Europe, and was able to force the leaders of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to sign peace treaties with him.

expansionexpansion• He turned his attention to the

last remaining European power, England.

• Had Napoleon been able to fight England in a land battle he might have done better.

expansionexpansion• But the battle took place near the

Strait of Gibraltar at the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, which put Napoleon at a disadvantage.

• He was defeated there but still believed that he could conquer all of Europe.

expansionexpansion• In order to help make this

happen, he declared a blockade, which closed all of the ports of European continent from trade and communication with England.

expansionexpansion• He called this plan the

Continental System, because it would make the nations on the continent of Europe less dependent on England for everything and give them more power.

expansionexpansion• His military training for land battles made him quite successful and he conquered land from Spain to Russia.

expansionexpansion• It was his invasion of Russia, though, that caused his downfall.

expansionexpansion•He began an invasion of Russia in the fall of 1811.

expansionexpansion• With the Russian winter fast

approaching and his supply lines stretched thin, Napoleon was in trouble when the Russian army retreated further and further into their country.

expansionexpansion• When the spring of 1812 came, Napoleon was no match for the Russian troops that came at him.

expansionexpansion• He was quickly defeated and exiled.

• He briefly escaped from exile but was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and sent away again.

expansionexpansion• Europe now had to try and reconstruct their continent and figure out what came next.