Napoleons Mistakes and Their Consequences

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Napoleons Mistakes and Their Consequences Today in social studies classes even at a very young age we learn about the famous ruler Napoleon Bonaparte. He is worldly known for creating a huge empire basing of off France during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Napoleons Empire was dominant, prosperous, and controlled much of Europe. However his headstrong, persistent personality to acquire more land got him out of power and his empire ruined. Lastly due to his strong and rough ruling tactics when in control of the empire, he was exiled. In Napoleons eyes, his empire was always incomplete and his constant goal was to take over more land at all costs. This goal lead to one of his costly mistakes of the Continental System. The Continental System was Napoleons attempt to blockade Britain and stop all communication between them and other countries. In turn this would destroy Britain commercially and their industrial economy allowing Napoleon to take over Britain however did not work and left Napoleon worse off then he was before. His next mistake was the Peninsular war and as a result weakened his empire even more by the Spanish guerrillas, Germans, and Italians turning against him. Lastly his third mistake lost him most of his soldiers and the tactic used to defeat him was the scorched-earth policy, by the Russians. These mistakes greatly weakened Napoleons Empire. The empire was then declared war on by Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Austria. Quickly putting an army together of untrained and horribly prepared soldiers he faced the other European nations in Leipzig, a city in Germany. In 1814 Napoleon was denied the access to keep fighting and surrendered. Then he was exiled to Elba and was thought to never be a threat again. However when he heard of New king Louis XVIII struggling for power, Napoleon escaped Elba and returned to be welcomed again by France.
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