User talk:Amazingallie

A disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes. The campaign left his Grande Armée severely depleted in number and it never regained its previous strength. In October 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig and then invaded France. Napoleon was forced to abdicate in April of the following year and was exiled to the island of Elba. Less than a year later, he escaped to France and regained control of the government. This second period of Napoleonic rule, now known as the Hundred Days (les Cent Jours), ended quickly with his defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Napoleon spent the remaining six years of his life under British supervision on the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon developed relatively few military innovations (though his placement of artillery into batteries and replacing the division with the army corps as the standard all-arms unit have become standard doctrine in virtually all large modern armies). Rather, he drew his best tactics from a variety of sources. He led the French army, modernized and reformed, to score several major victories. His campaigns are studied at military academies all over the world and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders. Aside from his military achievements, Napoleon is also remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic Code (Code Napoléon), which laid the bureaucratic foundations for the modern French state. He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte (in Corsican, Nabolione or Nabulione) after his deceased elder brother Napoleone, who died in 1765, in the town of Ajaccio on Corsica, France, on 15 August 1769, one year after the island was transferred to France by the Republic of Genoa. However, neither Napoleone nor his family used the nobiliary particle di. He later adopted the more French-sounding Napoléon Bonaparte. Napoleon was ethnically Corsican of ancient Italian heritage. He wrote to Pasquale di Paoli (leader of a Corsican revolt against the French) in 1789: "I was born when my country was dying. Thirty thousand Frenchmen disgorged upon our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in a sea of blood; such was the hateful spectacle that offended my infant eyes." Napoleon's heritage earned him popularity among Italians during his Italian campaigns.[2] The family, formerly known as Buonaparte, were minor Italian nobility coming from Tuscan stock of Lombard origin set in Lunigiana.[3] The family moved to Florence and later broke into two branches; the original one, Buonaparte-Sarzana, were compelled to leave Florence, coming to Corsica in the 16th century when the island was a possession of the Republic of Genoa. His father Carlo Buonaparte was born 1746 in the Republic of Genoa; an attorney, he was named Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI in 1778, where he remained for a number of years. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, Maria Letizia Ramolino.[4] Her firm discipline helped restrain the rambunctious Napoleon, nicknamed Rabullione (the "meddler" or "disrupter"). Napoleon had an elder brother, Joseph. His younger siblings were Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome. Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background and family connections afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time. On 15 May 1779, at age nine, Napoleon was admitted to a French military school at Brienne-le-Château, a small town near Troyes. He had to learn French before entering the school, but he spoke with a marked Italian accent throughout his life and never learned to spell properly.[5] Upon graduation from Brienne in 1784, Bonaparte was admitted to the elite École Royale Militaire in Paris, where he completed the two-year course of study in only one year. An examiner judged him as "very applied [to the study of] abstract sciences, little curious as to the others; [having] a thorough knowledge of mathematics and geography ..."[6] Although he had initially sought a naval assignment, he studied artillery at the École Militaire. .A.m.a.z.i.n.g. .A.l.l.i.e.