1. Napoleon Bonaparte's success in rise of power can easily be credited to both his leadership abilities as well as the political conditional circumstances of France. Napoleon comes from the Italian island of Corsica, but descending from Lombardy, the "Buonaparte's" were able to achieve noble status in France. Napoleon then attended a prestigious military school and became a top-notch general. The effects of the Revolution allowed many generals "who stood out" to move into positions of further political authority. Napoleon did so after an elaborate campaign in North Africa. After returning to home after numerous victories in Egypt, he was greeted by an enthusiastic and newly nationalistic France.
2. The Campo Formio (1979) was a peace treaty and alliance between France and Austria. Napoleon's conquests in Italy were rubbing very closely with the shoulders of the Austrian Empire. To avoid a continental and imperial war, and to keep Great Britain as a common enemy, Austria offered Napoleon territories in Austrian Netherlands, Venetia and others in northern and central Italy.
3. The political maneuvering Napoleon accomplished as a general would have been logistically impossible without the aid of the French Revolution. The absolute monarchy by definition didn't allow anyone outside the royal line to achieve monarchical power. The French Revolution offered any leader to rise to power through constitutional means.
4. The Second Coalition (1798-1801) was an anti-French alliance comprised of Britain, Austria, Turkey, Russia, the Vatican, Portugal, and Naples. This alliance meant to address the problems with the European balance of power that Napoleon presented in his imperial rampage of Europe and the Mediterranean world.
5. Napoleon signed peace with the the Catholic Church after years of state struggle. Although Napoleon strongly believed the Church should have no political voice, he also believed that it empowered the citizens to act morally. After the death of Pope Pius VI in 1799 (who strongly despised anything to do with the Revolution), Napoleon signed the Concordat to reestablish the revolution's ecclesiastical legitimacy and Catholicism as a major religion of France.
6.The Treaty of Amiens (1802) brought a temporary peace between France and Britain for a definite period of time. The peace treaty only lasted for a single year, however it was significant in how it dissolved the Second Coalition established the year prior.
7. Napoleon’s militaristic achievements in Europe in the early 19th century broke years of segregated states. Napoleon began his conquests at the individual states of the Holy Roman Empire. As he ploughed through these mini states, he began approaching close to the borders of the Empires: Austria and Prussia. Britain, who itself fears invasion, is working to collect as many forces and allies to defeat unstoppable Napoleon. She convinces Prussia to join against France, who only nibbles at the Prussia’s border territories.
8. The Third Coalition is composed of the Holy Roman Empire, Russia, Britain, Naples, Sicily, Sweden, French counter-revolutionaries, and french royalists. Spain and the rest of Italy had allied submissively to Napoleon’s Empire.
9. The Battle of Trafalgar was a naval battle between British and French and Spanish forces at the Cape of Trafalgar off the southwest coast of Spain. Twenty-seven British ships sunk twenty-two of thirty-three French and Spanish ships. The rendez-vous is known as one of Britain's most decisive naval victories alongside the embarrassing defeat of the Spanish Armada.
10. Had the French won at the Battle of Trafalgar, the Royal Navy's ability to monitor and protect the English Channel would have been eliminated. Without Britain's adamant navy, Napoleon would've been easily been able to walk into Britain and Spain might as well have been captured completely.
11. Napoleon utilised nationalism in France as a means of obtaining power. He reinspired the nation that was ravished by corruption and revolution through nationalistic aspirations. The Napoleonic Code gave citizens concrete ways to be "French" and the conquests that Napoleon went on gave them reason to be proud of their country. Although absolute monarchy is forbidden and despised, his empiricism was glady welcomed as a means of repair and refresh of a broken nation.
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