Napoleonic Era

On October 23, 1812, the Emperor Napoleon, campaigning in Russia, was for six hours threatened with dethronement by a theatrical coup d'etat back in Paris. Godfrey LeMay describes what happened.

At the dawn of the 19th century, Napoleon Bonaparte liquidated the French empire in America, selling the vast Bourbon heritage along the banks of the Mississippi to the United States. Why?

His refusal to learn by experience, C.S. Forester suggests, was largely responsible for Napoleon’s ultimate failure

To an official court painter we owe the most harrowing records of the effects of revolution and war. W.R. Jeudwine discusses Goya and his times.

During the Napoleonic Wars Britain occupied the strategically important island of Sicily. Most of its inhabitants, tired of long-distance Bourbon rule, welcomed the arrangement, but their monarch did not, as Graham Darby explains.

Gemma Betros asks what kind of person Napoleon really was.

Jonathan Downs reports on the fire last December that caused extensive damage to one of Egypt’s most important collections of historical manuscripts.

Richard Challoner unearths a letter, written in support of a widow and her children, which is revealing of a humanitarian aspect of Lord Nelson.

Few figures in British political history have endured such lingering hostility as the statesman who did so much to forge Europe’s post-Napoleonic settlement, says John Bew.

A major battle in the Peninsular War took place on 16 May 1811.