A Historian Reacts | The Napoleonic Wars [Part 1] | Oversimplified

[Music] [Music] hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video mr terry as i continue my search for historical knowledge here on the internet all right today's video comes from our favorite channel oversimplified and you guys made sure to let me know that oversimplified had uploaded and they are it looks like doing a video on napoleon so that's awesome i think they were they were kind of foreshadowing this way back in the french revolution videos that they did and then they kept making more after that and i thought that maybe they just weren't gonna do it but now they're back so that's awesome i know napoleon's a very favorite historical figure here on the internet community here people talk about them all the time and of course he has a big impact on history so i'm excited to check this out especially in the oversimplified style that of course they do over there you know summer is upon us and for me that is the time that i love to travel and go on adventures and 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general oh and here comes the rest of the army now oh no who else the actual army oh look at this mom [Music] welcome troops on the derpy horse from that one episode [Music] i always love the opening scenes and these great conquerors many you know what it like it's not that far off not that they've given birth to an army but napoleon was into the military stuff at a very young age i mean he went to military school i know they're gonna get to all this stuff but i mean at a young age he was into this stuff so not that far off he was pretty much a general when he came out very impressive origin stories for example alexander the great was the son of a king julius caesar came from oh they put forth so glad they always put up great was the son of a king phillips philip the the father of alexander that dude was pretty hardcore he had that scar i'm glad they put that over his head i think or on his face there or his eye i think it was when he was captured by enemies or something he he got pretty messed up and uh had a whole bunch of scars he saw some some stuff but hey one thing we see you know a lot is uh these kind of leaders are very influential parents julius caesar came from an aristocratic family that descended from a goddess great conquerors don't usually legit relatively insignificant families living on impoverished islands but as it just so happens that is where our story begins in the early 18th century the island of corsica was a part of the republic of genoa until one day corsica said not french we're declaring independence and it's probably not worth your time to try and stop us so genoa said you're right it isn't worth our time hey friends you want to buy this island and france said sure thing and thus corsica became france just in time for napoleon to be born french you're before technically yeah of course and from an early age napoleon development back at munchers sentiments yeah napoleon's dead however quickly embraced his new french overlords which created some tension between dad and son so look at me i'm dead i wear powdered wigs so um i i think it is important to note though that he was born in a time of some civil unrest a little bit and and identity politics and um so like he he it's like he was raised in this idea and in this situation about you know necessarily called revolution but dissent and um discontent and multiple opinions and all this stuff so i mean i think that's i think that's worthy of note and interesting that is dad you know because maybe just the old school people were like more pro french or whatever and then now the the younger people are more revolutionary right isn't that what happens some tension between dad and son baby look at me french for dummies i wear powdered wigs and silver buckled shoes and i'm a traitor to the course again people go to your room napoleon no you go to your room dad okay napoleon adored his mother who was definitely the disciplinarian of the family and even though she would punish napoleon severely he kind of respected that but napoleon's parents you know uh it's not uncommon to see a strong motherly figure in the history of some of these great leaders especially generals in history like genghis khan for example um revered his mother and uh so interesting trait you find it's you know not just about the dads like we saw with alexander the great although alexander's mother was also very powerful cunning woman that kind of used him too for her own her own gain but nevertheless parents wanted the best for their family and since they were a very minor nobility they were able to have napoleon sent off to the shining lights and rat infested sewage puddles of the big cities went to military school in france okay napoleon why don't you introduce yourself to your new classmates well i'm napoleon and i hate all of you your farts smell like cheese you can't pronounce the letter r all you do is go on strike and you call eggs biffs like a bunch of big dumb idiot dingleberries uh okay thanks napoleon i hope you like being bullied yeah maybe they get to more of the stuff i want to make sure i think i heard one of the things that when he moved to france to to um to to go to school that he was made fun of i think for his accent i think there's some kind of like like a corsican accent that stuck with him um you know as he was learning french and speaking with people that live in france and bullied he was they picked on him for his corsican accent his family's lack of wealth and it probably didn't help that he also had a bit of a chip on his shoulder but he could hold his own because he was short might be found dishing out ratatouille sandwiches for breakfast he spent much of his time alone and he loved reading about the great conquerors of history he learned about julius caesar and he wondered if one day he too might have a pizza franchise named after him he excelled at math and geography and when he graduated at the age of 16 he was made second lieutenant in an artillery regiment now second lieutenant might sound pretty sweet to a screw-up like ambition stunks of it and he wasn't content being just some junior officer he wanted to rise the ranks right unfortunately for him that would be a little difficult well napoleon i've reviewed your application it's clear you're very skilled with the butt kissing behind the scenes and simeon you're just about the biggest idiot i've ever seen your test results suggest you have the mental aptitude of a senile earthworm and in the form where you list your experience you seem to have drawn a picture of a gerbil giving birth to a shoot but your dad is the marquis de la fufay yet so you get the job oh nepotism man french society was just you know which i gotta say is ironic because he totally did this when he was a leader he gave positions to his brother he was very close with into his friends family members he totally did this uh when he was eventually at the top of things closed off positions were handed out based on nobility not talent and the young napoleon probably felt stuck wouldn't it be nice if say a revolution came along and changed all of that good timing what are the chances the french revolution is here best deal toppling head shopping king popping the revolution promised the old social hierarchy and make everyone see the regime napoleon may not have cared much for the violent mobs but if it meant he could rise the rights he was in i want to interject um so he you know the the revolution the at the the heart of the revolution especially the violent stuff he was not around i mean and he was he was out fighting in wars and stuff like that um but of course he was very well aware of the the revolution itself when it was happening i mean he had heard about it you know from from the inside and things like that and his brother who i just mentioned he was very close to you know they would discuss it in letters and things like that but he was somebody maybe they get to this but he was somebody that was actually very torn in the revolution and the fact that he kind of understood the claims of both sides you know between the monarchy and the revolutionaries and saw points in that and in like you can read these letters like to his brother he talks about how it was kind of basically kind of confusing to him about it and and one of his famous ones just paraphrasing he's he basically says like well if one was to pick sides you might as well pick the one that loots and burns and devastates or whatever forget the exact warning but it was pretty much like that which maybe from that makes him kind of uh uh side with the revolutionaries not from any philosophical perspective but that he was doing they were doing the exciting stuff you know and i think he understood you know as he's going up for power that he's gonna need to be one that shows himself as somebody that supports the revolution right because he's gonna need these people and i'm sure the the video as it continues on we'll continue to tell that story but again now he was very much since inches of people that were looting and burning and stuff but not again for the philosophical perspective but because they were doing the fun stuff he began fighting to defend the revolution he put down a british-sponsored counter-revolution in toulon and god he put down a royalist uprising in paris and got promised this is early 20s here i mean he he he's getting uh promoted though at a very big rate especially now the revolution is happening and now they're understanding i think that that outcomes in these battles are so important that it overcomes any of the nepotism that was happening and as his military prowess became more recognized he was even given his very own army it was astonishing progress for such a young man of humble origins and napoleon's wildest dreams were coming true now we've seen in history up with caesar up in alexander that once you have an army that you are in charge of if you can make them very loyal to you then they're going gonna be there when you are ambitious and other things as well but napoleon also believed he could increase his social status if he married an older rich lady and so around this time napoleon went on the prowl however if some sources are gonna be believed he was a verified creep napoleon was so ugly an overall sickly effect was created by his thinness and yellow complexion really reportedly had terrible luck with women and most wanted nothing to do with adelaide fortunately he eventually met josephine an aging single mother who was deeply in debt and needed still he loved her so he agreed to marry him despite finding him intensely disgusting napoleon you dirty dog you've done it unbeknownst to napoleon however josephine had a bit of a promiscuous reputation hey napoleon i hear you're marrying joseph i don't know this boy she sure is a great kisser that's right hey wait what do you mean she's a great kisser hey hugo you hear napoleon's marrying josephine wow she sure is a great kisser now hang on just a minute hey everyone napoleon's marrying josephine oh yeah oh no sake is there anyone here who hasn't kissed my wife yeah you now we got how can we not bring up the double standard of all this stuff every guy in that room had done the same thing but right because it's a woman it gets talked about total double standard they're all doing the same things wife she fell madly in love with a man named hippolyte it wouldn't be long however before napoleon would leave it and go sounds terrible because while france was having its revolution tensions in europe were rising austria you'll never guess what what's that friends i got two words for you revo lucian we totally just socked it to our monarchy what dude the rest of us are monarchies yeah you've just totally threatened the balance of power austria's gonna be especially we have to worry about our stinky peasants rising up against us i mean holy hell your queen is okay oh they should have finished that the our queen your queen that would have been big they need to talk about that because the queen of france is austrian marie antoinette was they were set up she's basically an austrian princess pretty much and uh they executed her right so austria more than any other country had you know bone to pick with france in fact not only they they execute on their family members but um and they're probably you know getting this get get into this here was that the other monarchies of france even though if they didn't like france did not like the rev that the revolution was happening because the ideals of it could potentially spread to their countries if if the people are have these these these rights and stuff they're protesting for and grievances those grievances might be similar to what's happening in a place like you know austria or britain or russia wherever and that could then inspire revolutions in those countries so again even if you have beef with france you did not like the revolution so you wanted it to be stopped i think that's what we're getting to here i'll go back five seconds see peasants rising up against us i mean holy hell your queen is okay friends this is pretty awesome and the rest of europe is probably itching to give you a wedgie but you're not ready for a war yet so you gotta be cool man it's absolutely crucial that you say something to defuse the situation right now preposterous i declare war so france ended up at war with basically the rest of europe and the war of the first coalition began at first france struggled but then they started to do surprisingly well and in many conquered territories they began to establish sister republics exporting their revolutionary ideas across europe in 1796 we just appreciate if you want to call it that how terrible the borders are and so complicated all these kingdoms and stuff in europe like it was so bad in the holy roman empire's heyday and it's still like so complicated planned a three-pronged attack to take vienna and then austria out of the war with two magnificent armies in the north to kick ass and napoleon in the south has a bit of a diversion for the first time napoleon would lead a military campaign this was his chance to prove himself to be somebody and what a general he proved to be the army he was given were demoralized lacking equipment and underpaid but napoleon galvanized them with inspirations delicious and he took them into italy he was outnumbered and his campaign was partially meant to be a sideshow but he made it the main show well they took it over being held back napoleon made staggering progress in a signature napoleon move he masterfully split his enemies into two and took them on separately knocking sardinia out of the war and putting the austrians on the run at the famous battle of lodi he was in the fray aiming the cannons himself getting covered in mud and earning right there of his men that's so important um because like he's his his idols again if we're just going to keep referencing caesar and alexander the great got a lot of support because they were fighters themselves i mean they were out there and gained a lot of respect um you find that very common with popular generals in history is that's how they got their respect is because they were out risking themselves too respected him so much that when he ordered an almost suicidal assault on the only bridge in town his men threw themselves at it and took it despite fierce austrian resistance for napoleon it was all he needed to confirm that he was the greatest human who had ever existed foresaw what i might be already i felt the earth flee from beneath me as if i were being carried into the sky geez wow napoleon you're pretty great at this stuff just be careful your head doesn't get too big what did you just say to me and as napoleon swept through northern italy the italians success goes to your head man yes i'm here to liberate you from your cruel austrian oppressors but and replaced them with french ones yeah so this is gonna be a common thing that you're seeing because again i i was telling you how there's a little bit of irony in that again he was you know justifiably upset when he was young that he wasn't getting promoted he's getting passed up by people far less proficient um but because he's gonna you know replace some of these leaders against with family members and and things like that and i kind of tell this to to my students um which is this like he would conquer these places and yeah in a lot of these cases the people might be like oh yay you know great uh we didn't like the previous monarchy and this revolution has been going on in france like has a lot of ideas that are great we'd love to adopt them but we don't want to be ruled by you we we don't want to be ruled by you thank you for what you brought but it's time to go home you're overstaying you're welcome thanks for the gifts but christmas is over you need to go home and that's not what his ambitions are dude's gonna be an emperor one day let's create an empire and rule so sending riches back to france to help its economy and that wasn't paying as much real money that's seen in years the pope had been supporting the austrians so napoleon briefly went to go give him a slap and as he began to approach vienna the exhausted austrians were forced to make peace with napoleon overseeing negotiations himself he had just single-handedly knocked austria out of the war right they call these for like forced alliances he did a lot of that basically forced him into treaties where it's like hey you can just stop fighting us maybe even join us or you know fear feel our wrath and for most of those countries it was better off just to join him or to back out that to continue on and by the way he was only 28 so maybe it's about time you moved out of your dad's attic in the italian territories he had conquered napoleon established new french sister republics even writing constitutions and organizing governments himself in general generally does when he got back to france he was hailed as a hero and the extremely unpopular government were concerned he might get some power-hungry ideas so they agreed he should go far away from sounds a little caesar-ish huh doesn't it now she'll get to the current government that they had there but it had all kinds of issues all kinds of issues go back here popular government we're concerned he might get some power hungry ideas so they agreed he should go far away from france to egypt where he could maybe undermine british access to india napoleon was eager to win more glory so he brought with him a team of scholars and he was like whoa it's a freaky man cat well it's a big stick well it's an ugly horse whoa it's a stumpy little manlet hey yeah i'm actually average height for the time of course they have to do that the biggest misconception that nobody believes nobody thinks that but everyone thinks they're high and mighty and they can say actually napoleon was average height for his time oh i bet so many people have put that in comments on youtube and stuff um i got to go back though to this whole egypt deal so i mean they're simply saying that he's there almost like against his will or whatever but i don't know about that i don't think i think he he's he's he likes being here and they're saying they're saying it's it's about trying to hurt the british who again we're using egypt to link um the mediterranean indian oceans because they have their biggest colonies india and to control that region on the suez and all that where they can tr where they can have more access to trade but i think there's an element to understand about egypt too that harkens back to his influence in that again going to to two famous influences of him alexander the great and julius caesar both had campaigns in egypt and those two people especially going back to alexander um actually specific alexander they revered egypt the greeks and don't do the oh alexander was macedonian not greek you know what i mean uh revere the egyptians that was their big influence of their culture the people they really respected and when alexander conquered egypt that was a big thing that was a huge thing for him is going and conquering and ruling and he was beating out the persians and stuff and liberating them and that was a big part of that because it's like egypt's such a important part of history and then julius caesar took over egypt as well and i think there might be an element of pride that that napoleon has here even though it's a very different egypt in this time in the early 1800s but i think there's an element of there he's he's walking in the footsteps of his his his his influences and that's worth just as much as blocking any access to the british direct access they might have to to the red sea so they can get to india i think this is there's some ego in here too i think that's out there now you talked about the scholars now i don't know if he's they're going to talk about this but i gotta say it in case they they don't get it is although the french will fail to take egypt um an extremely influential thing happened and that of all those scholars and people that were that came in there which again by the way leads me more into about how frank or napoleon was very interested in in in the culture of egypt and its history because they bring in these archaeologists and and scholars but then of course finding one of the most important archaeological findings in modern history and that is the rosetta stone uh which is an inscription on stone that's to make a long story short is how we were able to translate hieroglyphics egyptian hieroglyphics in the modern day because that knowledge had been lost for a long time and they were able to use that to translate which opened up the whole door to modern egyptology here so that's the most important thing really in the historical sense of uh france's dealings in egypt at this time but then british admiral nelson came down and wrecked his fleet and an anglo ottoman force defeated him at acre so napoleon abandoned his men and went back to france his campaign in egypt hadn't gone quite as planned but one thing you should know about napoleon was that he was a skilled propagandist he published his own yesterday and sometimes exaggerated his achievements and even commissioned paintings that generally made him look cool so when he returned to paris there are so many paintings these glorified paintings are all about again making him larger than life there's there's so many ones like the battle the cool battle the pyramids um which they totally marketed as battle at the pyramids in egypt there that has some cool uh some art to it but there's so much of that it's just ego boost and marketing yourself he was yet again hailed as a hero and he began to get some power-hungry ideas first however he had a bit of a problem to deal with see he had learned something shocking about his dear wife really joseph cheating this guy what's his name i swear now that you're becoming famous i'll never do it again make sure you don't i've never stooped so louis to cheat on you now if you'll excuse me i'll be in this room consulting my genders for the next 30 minutes right and by consulting i mean boinking by my generals i mean this woman yeah by 30 minutes right i mean two seconds oh his wife nipple it's i mean two seconds true story see why did the british just propagand this rather than lie about his height that's way more demasculating having dealt with his wife napoleon was then approached by a very influential politician who said he had an idea he wanted to stage a coup against the deeply unpopular government and needed the extremely popular napoleon's help now got to set up the context here because this new republican government that is in france um is so weak i mean they were unable at all to address the issues that led to the revolution too the economic issues the people literally starving um the social inequalities of the ancient regime all that stuff i mean this new government was able to do it they don't have much power at all i mean a very powerful absolute monarchy before them couldn't address the problem so you know what what good were these people going to be able to do in a short period of time so yeah it's uh it's it's it's power vacuum in in france napoleon thought that was just the darn tootiness idea the plan was to trap the government and convince them to voluntarily give up their power and here's how they did it hey guys oh my gosh quick there's a dangerous jacobin plot to overthrow you which we definitely aren't just making up better get inside this cage uh jacobins are the the much more extreme uh political group during the revolution in the early part they were like the only ones really talking about how early on uh it was a minority voice that the monarchy should actually be abolished completely because early in the french revolution people were just talking about doing a constitutional monarchy kind of like britain did but um there was much more of a fringe group like jacobins that wanted to go much further so we can protect you all right go in the cage gentlemen we got him in this case i don't know that story they actually like lock them up and force them i don't know the specifics of that let me know h was an isolated palace outside of paris with no one around but napoleon and his army with the government inside napoleon then entered and a pretty chaotic event ensued during which the government didn't seem entirely sure what was going on napoleon's men didn't seem entirely sure what was going on and napoleon himself didn't seem entirely sure what was going on but thankfully napoleon's brother lucian president of the lower house managed to regain control and the remaining councilmen were intimidated into creating a new constitution and thus a new government was formed with three consoles in charge i kind of talked about this as like like what they didn't really have at this time in this early government was what would resemble like an executive branch like you have in the united states had a legislative body and couple houses and stuff um but didn't have necessarily have a legislative body and i think that's consulate is maybe a little bit closer to what you're seeing here but it's a very small group right the executive branch in the united states says yeah the president vice president but also as a cabinet has a bunch of other people much more than the three positions they're gonna have here but after napoleon did some rewriting in the end there was really only one man in charge the first consul first called him and over the next few years he worked to consolidate even more power and so the highest position he now holds the highest political office is what's just been created by the highest political offense office in france now he became a dictator in total control of france and by the way he was only 30. so maybe it's about time you watched your disgusting bed sheets friends be over the honest possibly the greatest or definitely well now is his chance to prove it see back when napoleon was still in egypt being indiana jones hey yeah back home france was in france oh why didn't they why didn't he talk about yeah there it is that's it's the rosetta stone is written in three languages it was produced during the greek uh ptolemaic era when they ruled egypt so they would uh on this on this here there's a decree kind of thing where the um the greeks would publish stuff in uh multiple languages because the uh the the ptolemaic dynasty was was greek and spoke greek so they would do they had the more formalized egyptian hieroglyphics and then they had the uh the the more like regular uh script the egyptians had an important one for historically speaking was the bottom one on here and that is in greek and the the the good thing about that is greek has been continually this language continually spoken and written um going back well before this time so they used the greek to translate the hieroglyphics and that started to open kind of those those doors of uh of of translating egyptian hieroglyphics so anyway we should talk about this more it's very cool still in egypt being indian maybe later back home france was in france being france they had conquered even more territory and they were like hey piedmont you get revolutionary ideals hey switzerland you get revolutionary ideals and rome you get revolutionary ideas everybody gets revolutionary oh hey guys nice sledgehammers very cool nail gun are you guys here to get some revolutionary ideas nail gun [Music] as france was still spreading the revolution and with napoleon busy in egypt the european powers felt the time was right for round two and the war of the second coalition began the second one this time their big bad boy buddy russia was here to bang some french boys back to bordeaux and bang him they did france oh god blasted but then russia pulled out after stolen in switzerland and now that napoleon was in charge of the country he was ready to start blasting right back he took command of the army of the reserve and he brought the fight to the austrians now there are many traits that made napoleon a great military leader i already mentioned one of them how he was one of the boys and commanded the total loyalties but now we see a second reason the element of surprise in 1800 napoleon moved to geneva and it looked like he was probably going to take on the austrian forces in germany there's no way he'd be crazy enough to move his entire cruise to the alps as a surprise attack on the austrians besieging genoa oh napoleon's moving his entire army south through the alps as a surprise attack on the austrians besieging genoa napoleon's crossing of the alps is legendary and you may have seen one of the most famous paintings of the general but did he do it on elephants and with elephants like hannibal popping a sick wheelie on his majestic stallion surrounded by dangerous mountain terrain of course in real life oh wait did that i didn't look close that had uh you can see in the bottom hannibal they have a hannibal in there they're saying like now he's in the line of these famous leaders that have actually been able to bring armies across the alps and that was way like a sick wheelie on his majestic stallion surrounded by dangerous mountain terrain of course in real life he made the crossing on a depressed time but that's not as cool even lamers in italy the austrians expected him to go but napoleon went for their supply line near milan forcing the austrians to meet napoleon head on at the famous battle of morengo the austrians initially clobbered the outnumbered french and they were like hooray we won but then a few hours later napoleon showed up again with an even bigger army and he clobbered them right back holy cow the french star is running rings around us all right i'm average height for the time you jerk general morrow's victory at hogan and the austrians again sued for peace just like the war of the first coalition the second coalition ended in another french victory dubs but in many ways they both felt more like napoleon victories and they were using their powerful navy to blockade french ports and were even seizing the cargos of neutral ships obviously everyone else got british stuff the british were interfering with their trade so in response they formed a league and they embargoed the uk right back neutral countries protecting their own interests that's offensive so britain went to copenhagen and blew a bunch of britain and the league disbanded but because the uk's economy was pretty bust they decided to sign a treaty with france in 1802 for the first time in a long time europe was at peace congratulations yes pierre but not for long i still don't trust those dirty brits did you hear they've been calling me the bony men what does that even mean keep an eye on them would you i can't sire why not because they use nordvpn segway how would you like to spend 12 hours a day on your favorite website ever without the fear of your data being stolen nordvpn has thousands of secure servers allowing you to safely surf the net at the fastest possible speed while staying away from online threats imagine how much more vpn cybersec would need to pay for this with a 30-day money-back guarantee and now you can take advantage of their new password manager nord pass and new encrypted clouds full integration nordvpn lets you search for better deals in other territories and unlock content a video that's going to instantly get millions of years over simplified videos for example it's incredibly easy to use with just a click of a button you can head up to canada and watch some sweet canadian tv just like that go to nordvpn.com with a huge discount that's nordvpn.com oversimplified and as always you'll be supporting my channel so thank you now where were we oh yeah crossing the alps defeating the austrians and europe at peace what a meteoric rise it had been for the young course again he had just taken charge of a nation that appeared to be losing a war and turned it all around securing french gains in europe but there was now a big question you see throughout the chaotic french revolution french governments had struggled to keep the economy afloat didn't have a whole lot of support and they frequently came and went i mean that's that's the thing in the end like and the point can do all this stuff but the people still need change i mean they revolted for a reason they're supporting him they have hopes i guess for him you can do all the stuff but in the end if you can't fix the problems you're not gonna be in power very long would napoleon finally be the man who could stick around military victories were one thing because the general also govern spoiler alert yes the economy is crumbling well then why don't you have yourself a new national bank currency reform and improve taxation and welfare systems the legal system coherent mess well then why honestly wrap all those civil laws up into one new centralized legal code kind of similar reminds me of um we talk about famous law codes in history and especially in this region a couple you refer to gonna go to like hammurabi first law codes basically ever put into writing um fast forward to the the total revamping of laws that justinian emperor justinian did in the byzantine empire making a lot of complicated things and streamline them and and get out bad ones just really overhaul things and then napoleonic code is something that you would uh probably put in there too um at that almost at that level of of that because a lot of that's going to be copied later on but it really um streamlined the process there look who's this guy corrupt government officials throw them in bad infrastructure throw it in the trash woman's rights throw him in the trash wait really yeah yeah unfortunately while napoleon was building on the equality of the revolution he also largely scaled back rights for certain groups and husbands had full legal control over their wives but come on lady please maybe let men have a slice of the pie for once okay yeah you know kind of we'd wonder about that we were talking about we talked about this in in my class about how he made all these changes and stuff and that's where people talk about how you know like like was he fully a man of the revolution's ideas or was he simply exploiting the revolution for his own personal gain because yeah he did a lot of things that were very much like for the revolution there was still um expanded rights there's more education and it still abolished the social system and all that stuff but uh but like women again were a group that made big strides um during during the revolution and he reversed that big time and where does that come from again if you want to refer back to his influences maybe he would look at someone again like the greeks or the romans who had very patriarchal societies they're very male dominated societies and maybe he also felt that that was for whatever reason a uh one of the reasons why they had such stability and success was having that type of of structure and and gender roles and all that stuff maybe or maybe he just felt threatened by women napoleon further reformed education insuring a system based on his name now simeon had to compete with everyone else and napoleon could get the cream of the crop to help him run the republic but he wasn't just building on the ideas of the river but again i gotta say he put it wasn't all just just meritocracy there he put in like we said family members and friends into high positions streamlined them right to the top the revolution had led to a lot needed stability so he rolled back a couple things most notably with religion the revolution had pretty much kicked the catholic church to the curb but napoleon understood that since many french citizens still considered themselves catholic that could be a problem so he came to an agreement with the pope and brought back the church only this time with some pretty hefty power limitations he also ensured freedom for other religions and is also noted not to talk about positive treatment of jewish people at a time of widespread anti-semitism but while all of this may make okay not going over a lot of the religious changes that he put in so that's pretty big i mean a lot of that had been done uh before the before like he officially kind of took political power um but a little bit of background there the the catholic church was extremely influential in france go back to the era of their their france's absolute monarchy one of the reasons why the uh the the royal family in france had so much power is they had the support of the church and one reason why the church supported them is the church got a ton of privileges in france they controlled ten percent about of all the land in france which is a lot and didn't pay taxes on it which means all the wealth that they generate from their property did not go back into the french economy and back to french society and that was a huge economic hole in in society amongst others but and then that's kind of part of the deal that uh catholicism was going to be the official religion and even you know during because this is post uh protestant reformation they persecuted that royal family persecuted protestants greatly which a lot of them ended up leaving you know france which hurt their economy by the way as well and so again they weld uh a ton of privilege there and a product of the revolution was they took control the lands of the uh of the church um i think they also passed laws and stuff where either the french government or the french population could have more influence and who are the leading officials from the church like maybe elect in in france so whether that's like electing bishops and stuff like that so they took a lot of power from the church but again you know he needs powerful allies too and a lot of people they you know they try to abolish it people like robespierre want to get rid of basically get rid of basically get rid of uh religion completely but a lot of people's course were still devout so they wanted to see that back so might have scored some points with him uh score some points back from the church with that everything always has has a slant for napoleon all this stuff always has a slant that how is it going to help him there always is there's always a slant pullian sound like a pretty stand-up dude it's good to note that he believed in religious freedom because he thought it was a powerful tool to keep the poor from eating the rich or something like that religion keeps a rich tool to keep the poor from eating the rich or something religion keeps the rich from mass from being massacred by the poor like that not wrong napoleon's aim was to end the chaos of the revolution and finally create a stable and prospering french republic and in that aim he seemed to be largely successful and generally popular with the people of france he officially declared that the revolution is over adding i and you say the referendum ended by the ideals which started for miles of course not everyone was happy with napoleon's reforms conservatives felt he was too radical radicals felt he was too conservative but since napoleon was a dictator opposition could usually be stamped out with some good old-fashioned iron fisting hey maybe that means you're right if you find yourself you know the radicals on both sides won't believe you're going too far enough maybe that that's a good thing you find yourself more in a more um compromising position in 1804 napoleon took one last major step after some failed attempts were made to assassinate oh no that guy could strengthen his position and ensure his dynasty could live on after him and so he decided being first consul for life simply wasn't quite enough he's his territory he should become emperor he held a vote asking the french people if they were cool with the idea and they returned a definitely not rigged 99.9 percent in favor wait on this man and so on rigged so one of the things i i've i've wanted to learn by the thing i wanted to learn most in this series or what i wanted from the series is talk about his i guess kind of the logistics of his political rise because yeah he's getting his political power he became he was able to get a new constitution that created the consul and then able to become first consul and now able to come emperor like how is this happening because and and this is where the stuff's confusing and his whole reign um for a lot of people and and i get this across my class though that it's like this guy seems like he embodies like most of everything that the french had just fought against and had abolished and literally killed their monarchy over they're going to replace a monarch with an emperor you know what i mean but again that's where the i guess the the masterful nature of napoleon at being able to do this and use the revolution and use his success into creating this position for himself again in the wake of france just abolishing such a thing now what i didn't know is was this actually like a thing they actually like like voted for him to be emperor and it was 99.9 percent there is no way that's even close to what would have been there's no way it would have been that supportive oh 1.9 in favor the balls on this man and so on the 2nd of december 1804 in an elaborate ceremony at notre dame napoleon was made emperor the pope was even invited to attend and normally he would crown an emperor but to make sure everyone knew this wasn't some charlamagne stuff like the holy roman empire napoleon lifted the crown and placed it on his own crown yourself the balls on this man flex move right there just to flex well napoleon you were a general then he became first consul for life and now you're right you should be cool now right you're good enough yet is your ambition finally satisfied yeah it should be i don't know pierre what comes after emperor i would say god sire you want to be a god yep yes i'll put it down under maybe okay everyone just stop there hell is going on this core skin guy showed up out of nowhere and he's kicking our ass supporting the ideas of the french revolution wherever he goes and he just declared himself king of italy and emperor he can't do that i'm the emperor oh hey fellow monarchs i see you're having a monarch party my invite must have got lost in the mail just set up a spot right here wow you don't belong here napoleon we're coming to take you down i'd like to see you try oh i'm so scared i just pooped my pants hey everyone i just pooed my pants no but i did just poo myself before napoleon had even declared himself emperor the british had already redeclared war in france because both sides had been violating their previous treaty napoleon immediately occupied hanover and then began making plans for a great british invasion come on nobody invades chunk of land to the united states napoleon his army along the english channel but here was the problem while napoleon's powerful army would almost certainly obliterate the british on land there was very little chance he'd actually make a decision because britannia ruled the waves this power dynamic would keep the two traditional enemies from engaging in much real direction throughout the napoleonic wars however the british had something else up their sleeve copious amounts of money they were willing to throw cash at anyone who would go to war against napoleon and there were plenty of takers austria russia naples and sweden hoping to put napoleon's france back in its place make it rain against france third coalition probably thought that this time they stood a chance they weren't prepared for the total humiliation they were about to suffer the war of the third coalition was napoleon at his best we've already learned two ways in which napoleon was a great military commander but here comes one of the biggest reasons speed he had reorganized his army into course which were themselves basically small armies have their own infantry cavalry and artillery and as a result was able to act more independently they spread out through the countryside and by living off the land rather than relying on heavy supply trains they were able to move extremely quickly it seems like if you with that much spreading of leadership you would have to have a lot of trust like if you're napoleon um for these leaders that they're actually going to work together to coordinate these type of attacks napoleon would traverse massive distances outmaneuver his enemies isolate them and then move in for the kill before they even knew what was going on lightning warfare leading to total destruction would you like to see him do it here we go part of the coalition's plan was for the russians to meet up with the army and take on napoleon take notes after the video they could turn the tide against him so napoleon needed to stop them from ever meeting but he's all the way over in bologna no problem in a matter of weeks napoleon marched two hundred thousand men in secret encircling austrian general mack and captured his entire army a devastating blow napoleon later remarked i have destroyed the austrian army by simply marching next he turned to face the approaching russians okay it looks like the french are coming for us but check this out i've got an amazing idea when they approach we run away sir strategically genius the russians began to retreat russians have done this a bunch of times they they they do these organized retreats you know they work with napoleon giving chase and since his tactics relied on quick victories this could be a problem especially because the longer the war went on the more likely it looked other countries may join the coalition russia but napoleon knew the russians are alexander the first was young and seeking glory so he came up with an idea to lure him in he sent him a message what does it say um it says hello i'm just a little baby boy and i'm very scared are you talking like that or is he he is sir why is he doing that i don't know but it's very cute helpless and vulnerable fake though let their guard down very scared eh cute hey boris get my crossbow we're going hunting the allied forces turned to face napoleon who they now believed was in a vulnerable position he was set up at austerlitz and to make it look like by the way yes the flags are inaccurate for the time period don't be that guy okay don't be that snob he was retreating he had even evacuated the high ground a thick fog set in obscuring napoleon's center as the allies took the bait and set up on the heights from there they spotted napoleon's very weak looking right flank and they descended the heights to go get it little did they know it was exactly what napoleon was hoping they'd do the next thing they knew a large french force was emerging from the fog launching a huge central assault up the hill they swung around crushing the allies and as men attempted to fly across the frozen lakes napoleon ordered his artillery to fire on the ice causing an unknown number to drown damn he told me he was just a little baby boy what happened he tricked you sir you mean i was the little baby boy it was napoleon's masterpiece and austria were once again forced to make peace with france then with the french conquest of naples in 1806 the war of the third coalition ended as yet another napoleon 3-0 this was the third time napoleon had had to give austrian emperor francis a good spanking and so with the peace treaty in 1805 napoleon was determined to punish him he was forced to give up territory hand over significant compensation and promised never to fight napoleon again it's not napoleon negotiated always he always negotiated from a a position of strength and forced a bunch of these alliances out there and for a lot of these countries they they had no choice it ended up being a better deal than what they would have well they wouldn't had a deal at all if they'd continue because the the french would have beat them now russia sweden and the uk remained at war with france but none were able to offer much of a threat and so napoleon got to work strengthening his grip over europe he gave out rule of captured territories to his family and friends and most notably he established a new confederation in germany with himself as its protector seeing his influence in germany being white goodbye hrv acknowledged reality and officially dissolved the holy spirit identity that had existed for over a thousand years but it wasn't holy old empire for one thing spain had earlier allied with france in 1804 because the british just couldn't help themselves from blowing up spanish ships and napoleon hoped a combined french spanish fleet would eventually be able to invade england unfortunately he received word that british admiral nelson had engaged his fleet at trafalgar normally naval battles looked like this but in this case nelson did this was that from assassins he was an idiot no it's because he was a genius he successfully punched through the franco spanish line and unleashed that that's more like like like ancient naval battles where they would ram each other like try reams his victory ensured british control of the sea and his death during the battle made him a legend napoleon's hopes for a future british invasion no we're gonna not be a land-based napoleon was also ocean-based on the continent but that wasn't looking likely because the prussian king was under pressure from his wife frederick he's established a confederation in our turf and he told us he'd give us hanover but then offered it to the british you have to declare war on him what is it with you and war what is it with you and being a cupcake go to war okay in october 1806 prussia with its famed military tradition joined the coalition and declared war beginning the war of the fourth coalition unfortunately prussian king frederick william iii wasn't the smartest tool in the ship look at him over there being all french makes me sick we'll get him this time but here's the thing this time we have to stick together do not under any circumstances face napoleon by yourself you all saw what happened to austria hey where'd fred go are you a jerk think you're some kind of shot huh want to tangle with fred you don't got the cajones we're screwed without consulting its allies prussia had gone ahead and sent napoleon an ultimatum demanding he move all his forces out of germany now some of you watching this video probably can't even wipe your own bum bum yet but even you know you don't just send napoleon from an ultimatum obviously napoleon went in for the kill prussia's army was quite outdated so yeah he wants deals where he has the leverage napoleon at the twin battles of yena and oursted it wasn't even close even marshall davu's heavily outnumbered court our stat sent the prussians running and napoleon carried out a ruthless pursuit of his fleeing enemy taking berlin and within a single month decimating the prussian forces frederick william and the remnants of his army moved to the east at this point napoleon's forces were pretty tired winter had come and conditions were miserable he anticipated both sides would settle into winter quarters but russia decided to try their hand at an unexpected winter attack what's russia to the winner what's the winner took a heavy toll on both sides including the vicious battle of ayla fought in blizzard conditions men froze to death and many deserted the russian artillery tore the french to shreds and napoleon himself was momentarily under risk of being captured he could smell him the french army was saved thanks to a legendary cavalry charge by napoleon's flamboyant cavalry commander napoleon's flamboyant cavalry commander mira after the horror inflicted on both to learn about him they decided it might be a good idea not to do any more fighting until after winter then after winter came and the fighting continued the russians were pushed back to friedland where russian general bennigsen made a bit of a blunder by positioning himself with the aloe river to his back the french artillery were able to pin the russians between the river and their concentrated gunfire a major element in napoleon's fighting style and many russians drowned as they tried to escape oh man war of the fourth coalition victory nepal the fourth that should be the sweep sweet four no all right let's say let's talk about it all right whoa that was a lot that was a half an hour a dense napoleon history and that's only half of it because it looks like we're going multiple parts here so definitely look out for the part two but yeah there was a lot i mean i learned a ton especially about some of the specific interactions with some of the countries um which was great that's what i that's what i wanted to be able to um to get out of this so great i'm glad they're nailing it and hopefully you enjoyed this i mean napoleon is so popular amongst you know amateur historians they they love the guy i saw that in the historical march madness uh tournament that we had over on my channel in uh back in march and he went he went really far people love napoleon and i'm always able to talk about that and so many people are so educated and are able to just teach me a ton too and just school me that way because there's so much more to learn about this you know what i've come away is he's he's and i've always thought he's a very complicated figure right i i again come down to the side largely that he's he used the revolution for his own a lot of his own personal ambition um it wasn't necessarily fighting for the ideals but using those ideals to give himself something to stand on um to justify his rule and justify his actions so be interesting to to see how this is going because right now up at this point in the in the in the video um napoleon's doing very well i mean he just won his fourth you know war of coalition where he's defeating multiple people at the same time and that's you know why he gets so popular cena so popular is he was fighting these wars against coalitions of powerful nations and succeeding pretty much at every every uh every stop there now of course in the in episode two they're probably going to get to when you know some some not very good decisions are going to be made and you see the beginning of an end right of an empire that he was trying to build in the mold of his great heroes of history and trying to emulate those those people so i'm definitely looking forward to that really interested to learn more about the russia campaign that kind of is the beginning of the end for him there and uh the the whole ending stories of his exile and all that are going to be great to look at so i'm definitely looking forward to it so make sure that you are hopefully um sub to the channel enable those notifications so you know when i'm able to get back to this and if you haven't subbed my channel again i'd love to have you around you can see all the different type of historical content a lot of you come for uh the reaction stuff um but anything history this is this is going to be your home um in a in a fun setting for you another way to interact with our community is definitely join our discord channel which is very active a lot of history 11 people love to talk about anything with history and other stuff too so definitely check that out again the original video link is down below make sure you support them give them another view give them the like give them the thumbs up i'm so happy with the oversimplified channel just because you know it's it's hard to get educational content to basically be trending on youtube which is what happens every time they put out a video it's top five trending and that's awesome and i i hope that popularity of these channels continues we need more like this there are a lot of channels out there one thing i hope you get out of my channel is hopefully learning about a lot of other channels because there's a lot of other channels there doing amazing stuff like oversimplified and just need that more exposure and hopefully you can see that from the channels that i uh like to promote on on my channel here and get you guys uh uh more exposed to so definitely do that again links to a whole bunch of other things down there if you're into gaming at a gaming channel another youtube channel that's for gaming i stream on twitch and do fun stuff there said about the discord we got a teespring sport teespring store with a bunch of fun history merch um and a bunch of other things that you can get involved with all right with that again look out for uh episode two and we'll see you next time bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 394,224

Keywords: react, history, napoleon

Id: FlKS7TRSNvw

Length: 59min 55sec (3595 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021