1 00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,480 NAPOLEON: I have been condemned unheard. 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:11,520 This slow torture, this killing in detail, 3 00:00:11,520 --> 00:00:16,040 is much less humane than if they ordered me to be shot at once. 4 00:00:19,080 --> 00:00:24,920 200 years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte was taken across the Atlantic Ocean 5 00:00:24,920 --> 00:00:28,560 into exile on the island of Saint Helena. 6 00:00:28,560 --> 00:00:31,400 During the voyage, the Emperor of the French 7 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:35,520 played endless games of cards with his British military captors 8 00:00:35,520 --> 00:00:39,360 and constantly raked over the past. 9 00:00:39,360 --> 00:00:42,680 I was at the head of an army at 24. 10 00:00:42,680 --> 00:00:48,480 At 30, from nothing, I had risen to be at the head of my country. 11 00:00:48,480 --> 00:00:53,920 As Emperor, I should have died the day after I entered Moscow. 12 00:00:59,320 --> 00:01:02,120 On the 14th October, 1815, 13 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:06,080 Napoleon caught his first sight of the island of Saint Helena. 14 00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,120 "It's not an attractive place," he said despondently, 15 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:13,040 as he looked out over the vast mass of volcanic rock. 16 00:01:13,040 --> 00:01:16,960 "I'd have done better," he said, "to have stayed in Egypt." 17 00:01:21,760 --> 00:01:24,640 Napoleon's foreboding was justified, 18 00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:28,240 since at the summer residence of the British Lieutenant Governor, 19 00:01:28,240 --> 00:01:30,440 he lived the life of a hermit, 20 00:01:30,440 --> 00:01:33,960 and he suffered an indignity and provincialism 21 00:01:33,960 --> 00:01:37,760 that was profoundly at odds with the splendid palaces 22 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:40,640 and hero worship that he had once enjoyed. 23 00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:44,360 Exile was never going to be easy 24 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:48,000 for a man who had ruled an empire of 45 millions. 25 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:49,960 But as Napoleon himself said, 26 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:52,280 "Other men's downfall diminished them, 27 00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:56,720 "my own has only raised me to infinite heights." 28 00:01:56,720 --> 00:02:00,920 And what heights this extraordinary man had achieved. 29 00:02:00,920 --> 00:02:04,520 Victories whose names resonate in military history 30 00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:07,480 and which won him the mastery of Europe. 31 00:02:21,240 --> 00:02:22,880 BIRDSONG 32 00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:35,480 Love of one's country is of all human instincts the most enduring. 33 00:02:37,920 --> 00:02:42,960 It is innate in every child and it persists until death. 34 00:02:42,960 --> 00:02:46,640 No feeling is more difficult to eradicate. 35 00:02:48,920 --> 00:02:52,120 From his ruthless shooting of insurrectionists 36 00:02:52,120 --> 00:02:55,520 in the streets of Paris in 1795, 37 00:02:55,520 --> 00:03:01,360 to his defeat of Austria on the battlefield of Austerlitz in 1805. 38 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:05,320 From his resounding victory over Russia and Prussia 39 00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:08,040 at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, 40 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:11,720 to his near-obliteration of Prussia that year. 41 00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:16,280 From his Europe-wide blockade of British trade 42 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:20,360 to command of an empire of over 40 million people, 43 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:23,640 not to mention ownership of 39 palaces, 44 00:03:23,640 --> 00:03:27,720 the career of the Corsican artillery officer turned dictator 45 00:03:27,720 --> 00:03:31,360 turned Emperor of France was truly glorious. 46 00:03:36,040 --> 00:03:39,600 Yet, it was in September 1812, 47 00:03:39,600 --> 00:03:42,960 in these remote fields west of Moscow, 48 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:46,520 that Napoleon Bonaparte, now in his early 40s, 49 00:03:46,520 --> 00:03:49,040 as ever devoted to the honour of France, 50 00:03:49,040 --> 00:03:52,680 behaved in a way utterly at odds with the past. 51 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,680 And he made a major tactical error, 52 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:00,600 the first of a series of mistakes that would ultimately destroy him. 53 00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:06,520 Here at Borodino, Napoleon adopted a strategy 54 00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:09,360 that was unusually cautious. 55 00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:11,960 His generals criticised him for this at the time 56 00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:15,200 and historians have castigated him for it ever since. 57 00:04:15,200 --> 00:04:17,920 His reasons were impeccable. 58 00:04:17,920 --> 00:04:23,240 His caution however, unfortunately, proved ultimately self-defeating. 59 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:32,920 In the past, Napoleon had won important military victories 60 00:04:32,920 --> 00:04:35,160 by outflanking the enemy. 61 00:04:35,160 --> 00:04:37,840 But here at Borodino, in the early weeks 62 00:04:37,840 --> 00:04:41,440 of the most daring military campaign of his career, 63 00:04:41,440 --> 00:04:43,200 the invasion of Russia, 64 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:45,480 he followed a very different tactic. 65 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:53,560 He insisted upon a frontal attack on the enemy 66 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:58,280 and the battle that followed fast became a bloodbath. 67 00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:05,640 In a small battlefield by Napoleonic standards, 68 00:05:05,640 --> 00:05:07,680 only three miles by three miles, 69 00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:11,920 a quarter of a million men fought for ten hours. 70 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:14,960 Two million rounds of ammunition were fired 71 00:05:14,960 --> 00:05:18,760 and no fewer than 90,000 cannonballs. 72 00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:24,760 So, every second, three cannonballs and seven bullets were fired, 73 00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:30,680 which meant that there was a 30% chance of being killed or wounded. 74 00:05:34,480 --> 00:05:36,640 And to be wounded pretty much meant 75 00:05:36,640 --> 00:05:38,360 that your limb was going to be amputated. 76 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:43,080 One doctor alone, in the 24-hour period of the battle, 77 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:47,000 actually cut off 200 limbs. 78 00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:49,920 It was a most monstrous massacre. 79 00:05:53,200 --> 00:05:57,680 70,000 men were killed or wounded at Borodino, 80 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:01,040 over 27,000 of them French, 81 00:06:01,040 --> 00:06:05,160 the bloodiest single day of battle until 1914. 82 00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,000 On the evening after the battle, 83 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:10,040 Napoleon dined with two of his marshals. 84 00:06:10,040 --> 00:06:12,880 According to Baron Bausset-Roquefort, 85 00:06:12,880 --> 00:06:15,720 his chamberlain and prefect of the palace... 86 00:06:15,720 --> 00:06:19,720 Contrary to custom, he was much flushed. 87 00:06:19,720 --> 00:06:24,440 His hair was disordered and he appeared fatigued. 88 00:06:24,440 --> 00:06:29,480 His heart was grieved at having lost so many generals and soldiers. 89 00:06:42,760 --> 00:06:46,000 Napoleon had always been the most audacious of men 90 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:49,280 and the confidence and benevolence of his dictatorship 91 00:06:49,280 --> 00:06:51,680 had served France well. 92 00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,920 The Revolution of 1789 93 00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:56,960 had been a great moment of hope for the country. 94 00:06:56,960 --> 00:07:01,000 However, the overthrow of the monarchy and feudal aristocracy 95 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:03,760 was soon followed by chaos. 96 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:10,120 It's easy for us to forget the sheer collective trauma 97 00:07:10,120 --> 00:07:13,840 that France underwent in the decade after 1789, 98 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,800 when the French Revolution broke out. 99 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:17,520 There was an invasion, 100 00:07:17,520 --> 00:07:22,280 there was a terror which killed up to 40,000 people in Paris, 101 00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:29,080 there was a collapse of the money markets and wild runaway inflation, 102 00:07:29,080 --> 00:07:31,880 there was the abolition of the Catholic Church 103 00:07:31,880 --> 00:07:34,160 after 1,000 years of history. 104 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:37,760 All these things came together to leave France traumatised 105 00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:43,080 and the thing that brought them back together as a nation was Napoleon. 106 00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:46,080 He was felt to be the saviour of France. 107 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:55,840 It had taken immense leadership, opportunism and innovation 108 00:07:55,840 --> 00:07:58,240 to free France from that ordeal. 109 00:08:00,720 --> 00:08:05,880 And it bred in Napoleon an, at times, breathtaking conceit. 110 00:08:05,880 --> 00:08:08,640 As he once wrote... 111 00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:12,440 If the Emperor desired any title, 112 00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:15,160 it would be that of Caesar, 113 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:19,360 but the name has been dishonoured by so many petty princes. 114 00:08:21,160 --> 00:08:24,880 The Emperor's title is Emperor of the French. 115 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:32,840 But the Emperor had every right to be proud since, 116 00:08:32,840 --> 00:08:37,000 with the birth of an heir in 1811 by the Empress Marie-Louise, 117 00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:40,120 he had founded a Bonaparte dynasty. 118 00:08:40,120 --> 00:08:42,560 It helped to legitimise his rule. 119 00:08:42,560 --> 00:08:45,840 The Emperor was delighted by his son, 120 00:08:45,840 --> 00:08:49,200 writing to his former wife, Josephine... 121 00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:52,400 My son is a big healthy child. 122 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:54,560 I trust he will do well. 123 00:08:54,560 --> 00:08:57,400 He has my chest, my mouth and my eyes. 124 00:08:57,400 --> 00:08:59,800 I trust he will fulfil his destiny. 125 00:09:05,560 --> 00:09:08,880 However, to reinforce the security of France, 126 00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:12,240 and because the Revolution had not spread to other parts of Europe, 127 00:09:12,240 --> 00:09:15,080 Napoleon had been forced to work within 128 00:09:15,080 --> 00:09:19,760 a system of international power set by the established monarchies, 129 00:09:19,760 --> 00:09:23,880 terms framed by treaties and marriage alliances. 130 00:09:30,640 --> 00:09:32,560 Against Britain, 131 00:09:32,560 --> 00:09:35,720 the richest anti-revolutionary monarchist nation of all, 132 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:41,160 he levied global economic sanctions and further isolated Britain 133 00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:46,120 by muscling Russia, Prussia and Austria into the sanctions regime. 134 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:54,120 Napoleon was extremely sensitive towards humiliation, 135 00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:57,280 towards being humiliated as the Emperor of France 136 00:09:57,280 --> 00:09:59,560 and of France being humiliated. 137 00:09:59,560 --> 00:10:04,360 Unlike the Romanovs or the Hapsburgs or other great royal houses, 138 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:07,280 which had ruled Russia and Austria 139 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:10,360 and various other countries for generations, 140 00:10:10,360 --> 00:10:13,360 he was the first generation of his own house. 141 00:10:13,360 --> 00:10:16,200 And so, if he were to lose a battle 142 00:10:16,200 --> 00:10:19,880 or to be outmanoeuvred in a diplomatic way 143 00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:24,120 and if France was to be humiliated, it could cost him his throne. 144 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:31,240 The deal that Napoleon struck with Tsar Alexander at Tilsit in 1807 145 00:10:31,240 --> 00:10:35,720 forced Russia into his economic blockade of British trade. 146 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:38,560 Napoleon's Anglophobia knew few bounds. 147 00:10:38,560 --> 00:10:40,280 But it wasn't paranoia, 148 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:43,000 the British really WERE out to get him. 149 00:10:50,760 --> 00:10:55,200 He once said, in a proclamation when he was First Consul... 150 00:10:55,200 --> 00:10:57,840 People of France, 151 00:10:57,840 --> 00:11:02,920 the English Government has betrayed the secret of its horrible policy, 152 00:11:02,920 --> 00:11:06,000 to tear France asunder, 153 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:09,840 reduce her to the rank of a second-rate power. 154 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:15,480 These are the hideous successes for which England lavishes her gold, 155 00:11:15,480 --> 00:11:19,000 her promises, and her intrigues. 156 00:11:22,840 --> 00:11:25,840 However, the Continental blockade of Britain, 157 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:28,920 along thousands of miles of European coastline, 158 00:11:28,920 --> 00:11:33,840 proved enormously complicated and nearly impossible to enforce. 159 00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:35,960 To stem breaches in the blockade 160 00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:38,400 and reinforce his isolation of Britain, 161 00:11:38,400 --> 00:11:41,880 Napoleon now needed to implement a different strategy. 162 00:11:43,960 --> 00:11:47,600 For centuries, Britain and Portugal had been allies. 163 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:49,280 During the blockade, 164 00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:53,320 Portugal became an open door to Europe for British trade. 165 00:11:53,320 --> 00:11:57,160 "In Lisbon," Napoleon said, "Britain had..." 166 00:11:57,160 --> 00:11:59,600 ..An inexhaustible spring of wealth, 167 00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:02,640 a constant resource, both as a port of call 168 00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,320 and as a base for naval expeditions. 169 00:12:07,760 --> 00:12:12,600 To date, all of Napoleon's campaigns had been fought defensively, 170 00:12:12,600 --> 00:12:15,640 now he went on the offensive. 171 00:12:15,640 --> 00:12:20,920 In November 1807, he sent 24,000 men into Portugal, 172 00:12:20,920 --> 00:12:24,280 and the next year 100,000 into Spain. 173 00:12:24,280 --> 00:12:26,600 There they met their nemesis, 174 00:12:26,600 --> 00:12:30,080 the greatest British soldier for 100 years - 175 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:31,720 the Duke of Wellington. 176 00:12:31,720 --> 00:12:35,600 "All the circumstances of my disasters," 177 00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:37,720 Napoleon later said of that war, 178 00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:41,000 "are bound up in that fatal knot." 179 00:12:47,160 --> 00:12:51,000 The problem in Spain was that the revolutionary cause in the country, 180 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:55,040 and so sentiment for Napoleon, was just too weak. 181 00:12:55,040 --> 00:12:57,920 The forces of reaction in the Church, aristocracy 182 00:12:57,920 --> 00:13:00,880 and the peasantry were deeply entrenched. 183 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:04,880 The people defined themselves by their religion and locality, 184 00:13:04,880 --> 00:13:08,480 and not by their class or political ideology. 185 00:13:08,480 --> 00:13:11,720 So the French had to fight to occupy Spanish cities 186 00:13:11,720 --> 00:13:15,800 and to stave off attacks from insurgent guerrillas. 187 00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:19,840 They had to mount three separate invasions of Portugal 188 00:13:19,840 --> 00:13:22,680 and pour more and more effort into the struggle, 189 00:13:22,680 --> 00:13:24,880 never to realise total victory. 190 00:13:26,600 --> 00:13:30,000 The morale of the French Army suffered badly. 191 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:33,160 War in Spain was astonishingly vicious. 192 00:13:33,160 --> 00:13:37,280 French soldiers were tortured by the Spanish, decapitated, 193 00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:39,080 skinned alive 194 00:13:39,080 --> 00:13:41,800 and their genitals were mutilated. 195 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:45,160 A French captain wrote that prisoners were found... 196 00:13:45,160 --> 00:13:48,440 ..sawed asunder between the two planks. 197 00:13:48,440 --> 00:13:53,560 One of my friends was buried alive in the ground, all but his head, 198 00:13:53,560 --> 00:13:58,440 which served as a mark for the savages to play at bowls. 199 00:13:58,440 --> 00:14:02,120 For the anti-revolutionary nations of Europe, 200 00:14:02,120 --> 00:14:07,800 Napoleon's failure in Spain was a long-desired humiliation. 201 00:14:07,800 --> 00:14:12,240 His empire was a first-generation construct, just a few years old, 202 00:14:12,240 --> 00:14:16,440 and the asymmetric war that he was obliged to fight in the peninsula 203 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:20,280 stretched the army's skills to the limit. 204 00:14:20,280 --> 00:14:23,440 To make matters worse, the entente cordiale 205 00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:26,480 that Napoleon believed he had with the Tsar of Russia 206 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:28,760 was very definitely cooling. 207 00:14:30,120 --> 00:14:32,760 At the very apex of international politics 208 00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:35,640 there can't be such a thing as genuine friendship, 209 00:14:35,640 --> 00:14:37,360 especially amongst rivals. 210 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:39,080 Yet Napoleon convinced himself 211 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:43,960 that he and the Tsar had a special bond over Britain. 212 00:14:43,960 --> 00:14:45,760 He was wrong. 213 00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:47,520 On Christmas Day, 1810, 214 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:50,640 the Tsar put out a decree which effectively meant 215 00:14:50,640 --> 00:14:54,800 that Russia was going to be able to trade with Britain once more. 216 00:14:54,800 --> 00:14:57,240 It was a major insult - 217 00:14:57,240 --> 00:14:59,760 an attack on Napoleon's prestige. 218 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:02,080 It demanded retribution. 219 00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:07,680 For a man who is forever accused of cynicism, 220 00:15:07,680 --> 00:15:10,120 Napoleon was woefully trusting 221 00:15:10,120 --> 00:15:11,320 and even gullible 222 00:15:11,320 --> 00:15:13,520 when it came to the Tsar. 223 00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:17,680 Take a close look at Napoleon's letters 224 00:15:17,680 --> 00:15:23,360 and a trusting nature and fragility of character are soon revealed. 225 00:15:23,360 --> 00:15:26,440 Napoleon was one of the most prodigious writers in history - 226 00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:32,640 he wrote or dictated an average of some 15 letters or documents a day. 227 00:15:32,640 --> 00:15:34,960 To his former wife Josephine, 228 00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:39,240 Napoleon had written fawning, puppy-dog love letters. 229 00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:43,440 To his staff, he poured out order after order after order. 230 00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:48,120 But, at times, his correspondence betrays the acute sensitivities 231 00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:52,920 of the man behind all the valour and bravado. 232 00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:55,240 I love reading Napoleon's letters. 233 00:15:56,680 --> 00:15:59,920 Here's a man who's capable of really expressing himself 234 00:15:59,920 --> 00:16:04,200 and his deepest emotions, even his vulnerabilities. 235 00:16:04,200 --> 00:16:07,400 He once wrote to a Chief of Staff saying that, 236 00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:10,040 "There is no greater coward than I," 237 00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:13,120 when building his plan of campaign. 238 00:16:13,120 --> 00:16:17,200 And it gave him almost a physical pain doing it. 239 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:19,600 And speaking to a confidante he said, 240 00:16:19,600 --> 00:16:22,440 "France must accept me for my flaws. 241 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:27,720 "My greatest flaw is an inability to accept insults." 242 00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:32,400 It was a devastatingly honest self-assessment. 243 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:41,560 In time, that sensitivity, 244 00:16:41,560 --> 00:16:44,320 rendered more acute by the relentless aggression 245 00:16:44,320 --> 00:16:46,840 of the European monarchs 246 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:49,360 and the social conservatism of the peoples of Europe, 247 00:16:49,360 --> 00:16:52,320 would exact a devastating price. 248 00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,680 In late 1811, humiliated by the Tsar, 249 00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,560 Napoleon initiated a second military front. 250 00:17:01,560 --> 00:17:05,120 As he later said of the Tsar's action and the Spanish campaign... 251 00:17:05,120 --> 00:17:08,840 Two ulcers ate into France's vitals. 252 00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:12,240 She could not bear them both at once. 253 00:17:12,240 --> 00:17:16,280 We must extract peace. It is at Moscow. 254 00:17:16,280 --> 00:17:21,000 Napoleon now initiated the largest single military operation 255 00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:23,360 in history to date - 256 00:17:23,360 --> 00:17:25,440 an invasion of Russia. 257 00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:30,840 He amassed an imperial army of over 600,000 soldiers, 258 00:17:30,840 --> 00:17:34,080 larger than the entire population of Paris. 259 00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:36,200 A multi-national force 260 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:39,600 with almost half of the infantry born outside France. 261 00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:45,440 Napoleon left for Russia from here, the Palace of Saint-Cloud. 262 00:17:45,440 --> 00:17:49,440 He was well-prepared - diamonds had been sown into the lining 263 00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:53,280 of his carriage in case of hurried flight. 264 00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:56,960 The Tsar had reneged on his deal with Napoleon and the Emperor 265 00:17:56,960 --> 00:18:02,320 had planned a massive but strategically limited campaign 266 00:18:02,320 --> 00:18:06,040 to force him back into the fold. For the Emperor, 267 00:18:06,040 --> 00:18:10,280 it was to become a life or death struggle for his empire. 268 00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:19,880 From the outset, the campaign of 1812 was one of damnation. 269 00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:23,720 In June, the Grande Armee crossed the border into Russia. 270 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,360 Unable to withstand such a huge force, 271 00:18:26,360 --> 00:18:28,800 the Russian Army fell back. 272 00:18:28,800 --> 00:18:33,120 The following month, battle was joined with the Russians in the west 273 00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:35,960 but the enemy continued to withdraw, 274 00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,560 sucking Napoleon further into the interior of the country. 275 00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:46,320 The shocking thing was that, by that time, over 80,000 French soldiers 276 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:51,560 had already died, and tens of thousands more were too ill for duty 277 00:18:51,560 --> 00:18:56,000 and Napoleon had lost almost a third of his central strike force. 278 00:18:57,560 --> 00:18:59,680 The biggest killer was disease. 279 00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:05,000 Typhus had been endemic in Russia for decades, and then exhaustion. 280 00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:09,560 The army had misjudged the weather and debilitating heat. 281 00:19:09,560 --> 00:19:12,880 Because of the immense length of supply lines, 282 00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:17,400 soldiers were forced to live off the land, and starvation set in. 283 00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:21,720 According to Karl von Suckow, 284 00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:25,680 a lieutenant serving in the Wurttemberg Guard... 285 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:28,360 Hundreds killed themselves, 286 00:19:28,360 --> 00:19:32,520 feeling unable to endure such hardship. 287 00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:35,360 Every day one heard isolated shots 288 00:19:35,360 --> 00:19:37,840 ring out in the woods near the road. 289 00:19:37,840 --> 00:19:39,520 GUNSHOT 290 00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:41,400 Napoleon pressed on, 291 00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,800 claiming the continued retreat of the Russians as evidence of 292 00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:51,480 "a degenerate nation who don't know how to make either war or peace." 293 00:19:51,480 --> 00:19:54,480 The Grande Armee failed to outflank its enemy, 294 00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:56,360 and whenever the Russians fought 295 00:19:56,360 --> 00:19:59,360 it was dragged deeper and deeper into the country. 296 00:20:00,560 --> 00:20:03,880 In August, Napoleon took Smolensk. 297 00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:06,600 Originally, he'd planned to fortify the city 298 00:20:06,600 --> 00:20:09,720 and spend the brutal Russian winter there. 299 00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:11,800 But he changed his mind, 300 00:20:11,800 --> 00:20:16,880 ignoring the advice of some of his most trusted marshals. 301 00:20:16,880 --> 00:20:19,800 NAPOLEON: We have gone too far to turn back. 302 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:23,520 Peace is in front of us. We are but ten days' march from it, 303 00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:25,960 so near the goal. 304 00:20:25,960 --> 00:20:27,800 Let us march on Moscow! 305 00:20:32,360 --> 00:20:35,960 Napoleon was desperate for the kind of decisive battle 306 00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,520 that had won him victory in the past. 307 00:20:38,520 --> 00:20:41,360 Having beaten the Russians twice before, 308 00:20:41,360 --> 00:20:44,880 this invasion was born of a rational self-belief, 309 00:20:44,880 --> 00:20:48,960 rather than conceited, imperialist hubris. 310 00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:55,160 The problem with Napoleon in 1812 is not the things that go wrong 311 00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,480 after he captured Smolensk, but the very fact that he ever got as far 312 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:00,360 as Smolensk in the first place. 313 00:21:00,360 --> 00:21:03,400 Once it became clear that his three-week campaign concept 314 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:05,200 was not going to work, 315 00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:07,880 and that his troops therefore WEREN'T going to have the food 316 00:21:07,880 --> 00:21:12,080 necessary after those three weeks, he should have stopped where he was. 317 00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:14,600 He feared humiliation. 318 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:29,000 The determination of the Russian people to fight the advancing French 319 00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:31,880 was now attaining a near-mystical pitch, 320 00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:36,320 their will as unbreakable as that of the Spaniards. 321 00:21:38,320 --> 00:21:42,400 Finally, two months after the French Army had entered the country, 322 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:46,360 the Russian Army, under the command of Field Marshal Kutuzov, 323 00:21:46,360 --> 00:21:49,440 decided to stop their scorched-earth withdrawal 324 00:21:49,440 --> 00:21:51,280 and stand and fight. 325 00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,320 A location was chosen at Borodino, 326 00:21:57,320 --> 00:22:01,480 170 miles east of Smolensk. 327 00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:29,760 The main French attack on the Russian Army 328 00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:32,760 started at dawn on the 7th of September. 329 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:40,480 The Russians took a very strong defensive position - 330 00:22:40,480 --> 00:22:43,280 their right behind the River Kalatsha, 331 00:22:43,280 --> 00:22:45,560 their left at Borodino village, 332 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:50,840 and their centre at the large earthworks of the Great Redoubt. 333 00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:55,560 Then Napoleon's imagination failed him. 334 00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,200 Rather than seek to outflank his enemy, 335 00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:02,200 he opted for a near-suicidal frontal assault 336 00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:05,040 on the heavily defended Redoubt 337 00:23:05,040 --> 00:23:09,680 and the two armies battered each other into exhaustion. 338 00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:19,280 There was no finesse to Borodino, it was a vicious slogging match, 339 00:23:19,280 --> 00:23:23,280 hand-to-hand with musket butts and bayonets. 340 00:23:23,280 --> 00:23:26,160 Here, in the Great Redoubt, 341 00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,360 warfare entered its modern phase, 342 00:23:29,360 --> 00:23:31,480 with mass bombardments 343 00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:33,880 and slaughter in trenches. 344 00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:36,640 This did not play to Napoleon's strengths, 345 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,840 which were for strategic artistry and extravagant manoeuvres. 346 00:23:40,840 --> 00:23:44,320 The world according to Napoleon was dying. 347 00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:53,360 After two cavalry charges, the French held on to their gains. 348 00:23:53,360 --> 00:23:55,880 However, in a second error 349 00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,320 and despite entreaties once again from his marshals, 350 00:23:59,320 --> 00:24:02,720 Napoleon refused to send in his Imperial Guard 351 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,200 to finish the Russians off. 352 00:24:06,200 --> 00:24:10,720 He was cautious, hesitating to commit the flower of his army 353 00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,280 over 170 miles away 354 00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:15,520 from his closest base of operations. 355 00:24:21,880 --> 00:24:27,320 During the night of the 7th of September, the Russians stole away. 356 00:24:28,360 --> 00:24:31,200 The French were too exhausted to stop them. 357 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:35,400 Tens of thousands of men had already been lost in this campaign. 358 00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:40,080 As an officer was once quoted as saying... 359 00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:42,560 Any water to be found on the field 360 00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,200 was so soaked with blood 361 00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:49,200 that even the horses refused to drink it. 362 00:24:55,880 --> 00:24:58,720 Napoleon defeated the Russians at Borodino, 363 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,440 but he didn't rout them, which he desperately needed to do. 364 00:25:02,440 --> 00:25:04,520 He underestimated his enemy, 365 00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:07,360 something that was to become a trait in the future, 366 00:25:07,360 --> 00:25:10,400 but which had never happened in the battles of the past. 367 00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:14,480 Having misjudged the Russians militarily at Borodino, 368 00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:18,720 he was about to go on and to misjudge them politically, 369 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,320 here at the very heart of their empire, 370 00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,400 75 miles to the east, in Moscow. 371 00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:44,480 On September the 14th, Napoleon and the French approached Moscow. 372 00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:46,800 At last! Napoleon said. 373 00:25:46,800 --> 00:25:49,800 That famous city, it's about time! 374 00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:55,280 Yet, in one of the starkest moments of 19th-century military history, 375 00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:58,240 just when the Grande Armee entered Moscow, 376 00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:00,960 home to a quarter of a million people, 377 00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:05,200 just 15,000 remained there. 378 00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:07,760 The Russians had abandoned the city, 379 00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:12,240 their heroism testified to in a remarkable set of letters 380 00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:15,560 held today in the Russian National Archives. 381 00:26:17,560 --> 00:26:20,480 This is a letter from Tsar Alexander I 382 00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:25,520 to Count Rostopchin, the Governor of Moscow, 383 00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:30,280 and it's all about creating the defences of the militia of Moscow. 384 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:34,000 It was written four days after the fall of Smolensk 385 00:26:34,000 --> 00:26:37,440 and it's quite clear that the Russian high command now knows 386 00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:41,720 that Moscow is the next place that Napoleon is going to attack. 387 00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,400 Rostopchin was quite a controversial figure in Russian history. 388 00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,120 He was fantastically - fanatically - anti-French, 389 00:26:51,120 --> 00:26:55,400 to the point that, in 1812, he actually burnt down his own chateau. 390 00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:59,040 He went from room to room, setting fire to it 391 00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:01,480 and then put up a sign that said: 392 00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:06,160 "I have set fire to my chateau which cost me a million to build 393 00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:10,200 "because I'm not going to have any dog of a Frenchman lodging in it." 394 00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:15,320 This letter is also to Rostopchin, 395 00:27:15,320 --> 00:27:18,760 this time from Barclay de Tolly, the great Russian general. 396 00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,720 Here he writes, "It is with sorrow in my soul that I have to inform 397 00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:29,440 "Your Highness that we are going not to fight for Moscow again 398 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,400 "but just to march the army through it and out the other side." 399 00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,240 Now, "sorrow in my soul" is not something that Barclay de Tolly, 400 00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:41,360 who was quite a dry-as-dust figure - he wasn't very prey to emotions. 401 00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:45,400 He didn't write that easily, 402 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,200 but it was something that obviously 403 00:27:48,200 --> 00:27:51,440 echoed the feelings of many Russians. 404 00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:59,800 In Moscow, Napoleon's troubles escalated. 405 00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,440 He took up residence in the Palace of the Kremlin 406 00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:06,080 and sought a negotiated peace with the Tsar. 407 00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,120 Alexander gave no answer. 408 00:28:09,120 --> 00:28:14,960 A great fire engulfed the city and raged unchecked for three days, 409 00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,880 started by Rostopchin and native Muscovites. 410 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:21,320 Food was running out in the city. 411 00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,160 The Russian winter would soon be setting in. 412 00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:28,160 Napoleon should have left Moscow at once but instead, 413 00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:31,400 in yet another critical decision of the campaign, 414 00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,760 he stayed for just over a month. 415 00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:39,320 Then, on the 18th of October, he took a decision that would carry 416 00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:43,400 enormous significance for his entire career. 417 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:48,960 He had still not won a clear victory against Russia 418 00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:53,400 but ordered the French Army to retreat from Moscow. 419 00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:57,840 He shouldn't have been there in the first place. 420 00:29:04,800 --> 00:29:08,760 It was a signature of Napoleon's success throughout his career 421 00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,480 that it was always the battle that mattered and not the capital. 422 00:29:12,480 --> 00:29:15,120 Yet, in 1812, it was the capital 423 00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:18,000 that he focused on and not the battle. 424 00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:22,240 Was this a lust for conquest or his own personal vanity? 425 00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:26,320 No, it was simply that standing in the Sparrow Hills 426 00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:30,520 looking down on the golden, onion-domed Moscow, 427 00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:34,480 he found capturing the city to be irresistible. 428 00:29:37,920 --> 00:29:40,960 The retreat from Moscow presented Napoleon 429 00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:44,040 with the most important decision of his life. 430 00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,400 Within a week of leaving the city he had a choice of routes 431 00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,280 back to Smolensk - 432 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,360 a bold southern route through warmer, unspoilt countryside, 433 00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:56,280 but on which the Russian Army was camped, 434 00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:59,920 a western route along unmapped roads, 435 00:29:59,920 --> 00:30:02,400 or he could return the way he had come, 436 00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:06,160 along the devastated road to Smolensk. 437 00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:10,000 After an indecisive battle on the 24th of October, 438 00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:12,760 Napoleon decided to take the northern route, 439 00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,120 at least it had some food depots along that way. 440 00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:19,120 The decision was wrong and disastrous. 441 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:21,760 What he didn't know was that the Russians 442 00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:24,720 were retreating from the southern route. 443 00:30:26,520 --> 00:30:30,120 The winter of 1812 was exceptionally cold, 444 00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:35,600 minus-13 degrees during the day, minus-35 at night. 445 00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:39,640 The food depots on the northern route were insufficiently stocked 446 00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,360 and the countryside had already been stripped of food and fodder. 447 00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:49,160 There was starvation, snow-blindness, frostbite. 448 00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:53,560 Some French soldiers had to sleep inside disembowelled horses 449 00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,200 to avoid the cold. 450 00:30:56,200 --> 00:30:59,920 An officer in the Imperial Russian Army saw... 451 00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:02,800 ..corpses, from the thighs of which 452 00:31:02,800 --> 00:31:06,000 strips of flesh had been cut for eating. 453 00:31:07,280 --> 00:31:10,720 It looked like a caravan. A wandering nation. 454 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:13,760 Wrote an aide-de-camp of Napoleon. 455 00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:17,120 It is impossible to express the grief of Napoleon. 456 00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:21,360 His Chamberlain wrote. The extreme agitation of his mind. 457 00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:26,480 Three weeks later, savaged by conditions 458 00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:31,400 and attack from the Russians, the French finally arrived at Smolensk. 459 00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:33,680 How would they escape from Russia, 460 00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,920 and exit this hell of a campaign? 461 00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:38,960 The question mattered since, 462 00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,800 advancing to the Berezina River in modern-day Belarus, 463 00:31:42,800 --> 00:31:47,160 the Grande Armee was now completely boxed in. 464 00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:54,560 In the epic of Napoleon's invasion of Russia and route back home, 465 00:31:54,560 --> 00:31:58,040 a story of immense human disaster 466 00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,720 and serial catastrophes. 467 00:32:00,720 --> 00:32:06,000 There is no more perilous moment for Napoleon than here at the Berezina. 468 00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:12,280 144,000 Russians were converging on his army of 55,000 men. 469 00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:14,520 He had a river to his back, 470 00:32:14,520 --> 00:32:18,720 the only bridge over which had been destroyed by the Russians. 471 00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:21,000 As Marshal Ney told a friend, 472 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,200 "If Napoleon succeeds in getting us out of this today, 473 00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,400 "he's the very devil." 474 00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:38,280 Napoleon's army appeared to be hopelessly caught. 475 00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:42,320 In front of him, a fast-flowing, freezing cold river. 476 00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,040 Behind him, a large enemy. 477 00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,240 From the north, a second force of Russians was bearing down, 478 00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:52,160 and from the south a third. 479 00:32:52,160 --> 00:32:55,320 What followed has to be one of the greatest escapes 480 00:32:55,320 --> 00:32:57,640 in all of military history. 481 00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:00,920 The Russians who were along that bank of the river 482 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:03,840 suspected that the French were going to attempt a crossing 483 00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,120 on this stretch of it. 484 00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,160 So, in a classic deceptive manoeuvre, 485 00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:13,360 Napoleon sent a force of 300 cuirassiers 486 00:33:13,360 --> 00:33:16,080 right the way down south there. 487 00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:20,080 They cut down trees and interviewed the locals and lit campfires - 488 00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:22,960 all to distract the Russians. 489 00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:28,400 But would it give Napoleon enough time and space to create an opening? 490 00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:38,840 French staff officers could hardly believe their luck 491 00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:43,080 when they saw the Russian cavalry patrols ride off southward 492 00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,320 without so much as a glance over their shoulders. 493 00:33:46,320 --> 00:33:49,320 The lure appeared to have worked. 494 00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:57,280 The French identified an ideal site to bridge the river... 495 00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:01,400 ..but how would they cross? 496 00:34:04,840 --> 00:34:07,040 400 Dutch sappers, 497 00:34:07,040 --> 00:34:10,720 plunged up to their armpits in this freezing cold river, 498 00:34:10,720 --> 00:34:12,320 and I mean freezing cold - 499 00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,760 there were six-foot blocks of ice that were floating down it. 500 00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,440 And some of them were swept away by the current and others of them 501 00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:22,480 succumbed to hypothermia, even though you were only allowed 502 00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:25,200 to go in the water for 15 minutes each. 503 00:34:25,200 --> 00:34:29,760 But what the rest of them achieved was something that I think stands up 504 00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:31,960 in the annals of military history 505 00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:34,440 because it was a miracle of escape. 506 00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:39,120 They managed to build two 507 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:41,520 300-foot long 508 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:44,200 and 12-foot wide bridges 509 00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,720 and they did it in only three hours. 510 00:34:46,720 --> 00:34:50,480 And it was across these that Napoleon's army escaped, 511 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:52,520 55,000 of them. 512 00:34:54,760 --> 00:34:58,840 The story wasn't so happy for the 20,000 camp followers 513 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:02,920 and stragglers who were stuck on this side of the bank, 514 00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:08,000 especially after the French Army set fire to the bridges at the end. 515 00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:12,440 They were caught in complete pandemonium and panic 516 00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:16,360 and when the Russian Army got here, they were massacred. 517 00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,120 The campaign had seen a catalogue of mistakes. 518 00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:33,400 Of the men in the central column that advanced on Moscow in 1812, 519 00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:37,640 95% had either died or been captured. 520 00:35:37,640 --> 00:35:42,120 By my calculation, almost two-thirds of the campaign force died 521 00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:44,880 from causes other than military action. 522 00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:48,200 Everything that had gone wrong was down to Napoleon, 523 00:35:48,200 --> 00:35:51,400 yet he blamed the whole "frightful calamity", 524 00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:54,360 as he described it in a proclamation to the French nation, 525 00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:58,120 on "so cruel a season" - IE, the weather. 526 00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,160 He argued that he had been defeated by savage nature, 527 00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,320 rather than by his own poor judgment. 528 00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:11,080 But on his return to Paris, the most phenomenal thing happened. 529 00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:16,640 He not only survived the political fallout, he built another army. 530 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,200 Within two months of the retreat from Moscow, 531 00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:22,120 Napoleon was back here at the Arc du Carrousel 532 00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,600 and then he attended an exhibition of painting at the Louvre. 533 00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:29,320 To all appearances, it was business as usual. 534 00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:31,960 The sheer scale of the losses in Russia 535 00:36:31,960 --> 00:36:36,160 would have felled most military leaders, but not Napoleon. 536 00:36:36,160 --> 00:36:43,200 Within two months, he had built up an entirely new army of 350,000 men. 537 00:36:43,200 --> 00:36:48,200 It was a testament to how much France still believed in him. 538 00:36:49,440 --> 00:36:55,240 The root of Napoleon's power in France 539 00:36:55,240 --> 00:37:00,120 Revolution had given them their land taken from monarchy, aristocracy 540 00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,880 and Church, and the Emperor had protected their interests 541 00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,400 at home and abroad. 542 00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,760 Although conscription was deeply unpopular, 543 00:37:09,760 --> 00:37:13,840 overall, they were still prepared to continue to supply their sons 544 00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,400 to the cause of France and the glory of their Emperor. 545 00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:20,400 As one of Napoleon's closest advisors said... 546 00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:24,280 The entire nation overlooked Napoleon's reverses 547 00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:28,160 and vied with one another in displaying zeal and devotion. 548 00:37:28,160 --> 00:37:30,560 It was a personal triumph for the Emperor. 549 00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:34,960 Things seemed to come into existence as if by magic. 550 00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:39,800 Yet the anti-Revolutionary powers now saw Napoleon's weakness 551 00:37:39,800 --> 00:37:41,920 and smelled blood. 552 00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:46,000 A new alliance, this time of ALL the major powers in Europe, 553 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:47,880 now formed against him 554 00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:51,320 and they advanced what they called a Holy War. 555 00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:55,160 With battle lines drawn in North-West and Central Europe, 556 00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:59,320 the French Army won some military successes against Russia and Prussia 557 00:37:59,320 --> 00:38:01,680 in the spring of 1813. 558 00:38:01,680 --> 00:38:04,920 But then, in a startling change of tactics, 559 00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,000 the allied powers agreed amongst themselves 560 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,400 only to attack Napoleon's marshals 561 00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:14,440 and then fall back when he himself was present. 562 00:38:14,440 --> 00:38:16,880 The strategy worked. 563 00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:21,160 By Autumn 1813, half a million men assembled to fight 564 00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:25,440 the largest battle in European history thus far. 565 00:38:25,440 --> 00:38:29,000 At the Battle of Leipzig in Germany, known as the "Battle of the Nations", 566 00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,320 sheer weight of numbers forced Napoleon 567 00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,720 to fight only the second defensive battle of his career. 568 00:38:36,720 --> 00:38:39,360 He was defeated resoundingly 569 00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:43,280 with the loss of no fewer than 33 generals. 570 00:38:44,520 --> 00:38:48,800 When he quitted Leipzig... Recalled the King of Saxony's aide-de-camp. 571 00:38:48,800 --> 00:38:51,680 ..he was bathed in sweat from bodily exertion 572 00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:54,520 and mental disturbance combined. 573 00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:01,920 The Allies now carried out a relentless drive to invade France. 574 00:39:01,920 --> 00:39:06,000 Napoleon faced 300,000 Russians, 575 00:39:06,000 --> 00:39:09,520 Prussians and Austrians on the Rhine. 576 00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,560 In the Campaign of France that followed, 577 00:39:12,560 --> 00:39:17,360 the Grande Armee fought no fewer than 12 battles to save La Patrie. 578 00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:20,000 With Napoleon in the field, 579 00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:23,720 outright opposition formed in government and in Paris. 580 00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:29,160 On the 31st March, 1814, Tsar Alexander I entered Paris 581 00:39:29,160 --> 00:39:32,240 at the head of the Russian Army. 582 00:39:32,240 --> 00:39:36,400 With enemy forces encamped in the fields of the Champs-Elysees, 583 00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,000 Napoleon became the first French leader to lose Paris 584 00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:44,360 to enemy occupation for almost 400 years. 585 00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,320 With the capture of Paris, 586 00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:55,120 Tsar Alexander I came to stay here, at the house of Talleyrand, 587 00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:59,680 the political leader of the opposition to Napoleon in France. 588 00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,560 So, this place became both the nerve centre 589 00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:05,440 of the Allied occupation 590 00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:09,240 and the political headquarters of the Russian Empire. 591 00:40:09,240 --> 00:40:13,480 Coming here represented total victory for the Russians. 592 00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,720 Not only had they avenged the invasion of 1812 593 00:40:17,720 --> 00:40:21,000 but they had also deposed its leader 594 00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:25,040 and they had eclipsed the power of the Napoleonic Empire. 595 00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:29,400 Within just a year and a half, 596 00:40:29,400 --> 00:40:33,800 Napoleon had paid the price of his disaster in Russia. 597 00:40:33,800 --> 00:40:37,160 The energy of the 49-year-old leader was not in doubt. 598 00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:41,840 In the 65-day long 1814 campaign alone, 599 00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:44,800 Napoleon covered 1,000 miles on horseback 600 00:40:44,800 --> 00:40:48,320 and slept in 48 different places. 601 00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:51,840 In one five-day period, 602 00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,280 he won four battles in a row. 603 00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:57,000 However, as he himself said... 604 00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:02,000 I am afraid to admit that I have waged war too much. 605 00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:05,280 The fathers and sons of the French middle classes 606 00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:09,800 were also no longer prepared to enlist for military service. 607 00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,880 By 1814, France was utterly exhausted 608 00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,080 and unwilling to heed the Emperor's call. 609 00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:22,360 The economy was ruined after 22 years of war. 610 00:41:22,360 --> 00:41:25,800 The cavalry had been decimated by the retreat from Moscow, 611 00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:30,280 and men were unwilling to be conscripted into the army. 612 00:41:30,280 --> 00:41:34,320 Napoleon was ready and willing to fight on after the fall of Paris. 613 00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,360 His people weren't. 614 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,440 The day before the European powers occupied Paris, 615 00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,280 Talleyrand, a former ally of Napoleon, 616 00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,320 staged a coup against him 617 00:41:46,320 --> 00:41:48,640 and set up a provisional government. 618 00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:53,400 Within days, the entirely Napoleon-appointed Senate 619 00:41:53,400 --> 00:41:58,520 deposed the Emperor and invited a Bourbon onto the throne. 620 00:41:58,520 --> 00:42:02,800 On the 4th of April, at the Palace of Fontainebleau outside Paris, 621 00:42:02,800 --> 00:42:08,920 Napoleon met his eight remaining marshals to consider their options. 622 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:12,320 Napoleon wanted to march on Paris 623 00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,760 but his senior advisors, some of whom, 624 00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,200 like Marshals Ney and Oudinot and MacDonald, 625 00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,640 had been by his side from the early days of his career, 626 00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:22,640 refused. 627 00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,720 Napoleon could have precipitated a civil war. 628 00:42:27,720 --> 00:42:31,320 But instead, he agreed to abdicate. 629 00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:33,920 The Allies offered him the sovereignty of Elba, 630 00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:35,440 an island in the Mediterranean. 631 00:42:37,320 --> 00:42:40,680 On the 20th April, Napoleon departed for Elba. 632 00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:46,400 Eight days earlier, he had attempted suicide, 633 00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:47,960 but failed. 634 00:42:50,400 --> 00:42:52,160 This staircase at Fontainebleau 635 00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:57,000 saw the most emotional scene of the entire Napoleonic epic. 636 00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,080 "Soldiers of my guard," 637 00:42:59,080 --> 00:43:02,960 Napoleon said to his troops on the 20th April, 1814, 638 00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:07,400 "for 20 years, you have fought in the path of honour and glory. 639 00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:09,400 "Farewell, my children. 640 00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:12,360 "I should like to clasp each of you to my breast 641 00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:15,720 "but instead I shall embrace your flag." 642 00:43:15,720 --> 00:43:21,760 He then kissed the flag and got in to his carriage and left for Elba. 643 00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:24,400 There wasn't a dry eye in the house. 644 00:43:31,760 --> 00:43:35,400 Elba proved to be little more than gardening leave for Napoleon, 645 00:43:35,400 --> 00:43:39,480 who remained, for many French people, their legitimate leader. 646 00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,320 They feared the seizure of their property by the monarchy 647 00:43:43,320 --> 00:43:46,120 and the Bourbons behaved with petty vindictiveness 648 00:43:46,120 --> 00:43:49,000 in their ten months in power. 649 00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:53,200 Which is why, on the 26th February, 1815, 650 00:43:53,200 --> 00:43:55,720 Napoleon left Elba for France, 651 00:43:55,720 --> 00:44:00,800 accompanied by only 650 men of his Imperial Guard. 652 00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:04,520 He was greeted as a hero on his return. 653 00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:06,480 The European powers declared him 654 00:44:06,480 --> 00:44:09,360 "an enemy and disturber of the world" - 655 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:13,760 confirming him for many Frenchmen as a Revolutionary patriot. 656 00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:17,800 And Napoleon marched on Paris. 657 00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:20,600 On the 20th March, 1815, 658 00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:22,360 Napoleon arrived at the Tuileries 659 00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:25,280 and was carried up the stairs in triumph. 660 00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:28,280 The Tricolor flew over the Palace once again 661 00:44:28,280 --> 00:44:32,280 and slogans started appearing on the walls of the city. 662 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,480 "Down with the priests! Death to the Royalists! 663 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,960 "Bourbons to the scaffold!" 664 00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,600 It was the great French novelist Honore de Balzac who said, 665 00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:44,880 "Did ever a man before in history 666 00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:48,400 "win a great empire simply by showing his hat." 667 00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,280 Napoleon is always portrayed as a warmonger 668 00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:59,920 and yet the British declared war against him in 1803, 669 00:44:59,920 --> 00:45:03,120 the Austrians and Russians in 1805, 670 00:45:03,120 --> 00:45:05,760 the Russians and Prussians in 1806, 671 00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,360 and the Austrians again in 1809. 672 00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,800 The campaigns of 1813 and 1814 673 00:45:11,800 --> 00:45:14,840 were similarly initiated by the Allied powers. 674 00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:16,880 And so it was inevitable that, 675 00:45:16,880 --> 00:45:20,280 in response to Napoleon re-taking Paris in 1815, 676 00:45:20,280 --> 00:45:24,440 the Allied powers would want to overthrow the "Corsican Ogre" 677 00:45:24,440 --> 00:45:26,280 for a second time. 678 00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:28,320 The Allies were set on vengeance, 679 00:45:28,320 --> 00:45:32,600 while Napoleon was prepared to put the past behind him. 680 00:45:32,600 --> 00:45:35,080 Of all that individuals have done or written 681 00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,240 since the taking of Paris. Napoleon said. 682 00:45:38,240 --> 00:45:41,080 I shall forever remain ignorant. 683 00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:47,640 For Wellington, this was the opportunity to destroy 684 00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:52,880 what he called "this disgusting and fraudulent tyranny of Bonaparte." 685 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:55,120 For Napoleon, it was also clear 686 00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,840 that there was going to be a decisive battle. 687 00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,640 "We shall emerge victorious", he said 688 00:46:00,640 --> 00:46:05,920 "from this struggle of a great people against its oppressors." 689 00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:12,200 By decree in March 1815, Napoleon scaled up the army. 690 00:46:12,200 --> 00:46:15,240 He made it clear to the Allied powers that he wanted peace, 691 00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:17,720 but it had no impact upon them. 692 00:46:17,720 --> 00:46:20,840 He renounced all Imperial ideas. 693 00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,440 Henceforth, the happiness and the consolidation of France 694 00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:28,280 shall be the object of all my thoughts. He wrote. 695 00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:32,520 At a huge political and military rally in Paris, 696 00:46:32,520 --> 00:46:36,160 he braced France for the inevitable challenge. 697 00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,200 NAPOLEON: Emperor, consul, soldier, 698 00:46:39,200 --> 00:46:41,840 I owe everything to the people. 699 00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:44,480 In prosperity, in adversity, 700 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:47,320 on the battlefield, in council, 701 00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,000 enthroned, in exile, 702 00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:52,760 France has been the sole and constant object 703 00:46:52,760 --> 00:46:54,880 of my thoughts and actions. 704 00:46:54,880 --> 00:46:59,320 Frenchmen, tell the citizens that we are at a great moment. 705 00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:07,440 Napoleon determined to strike north into Belgium 706 00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:11,160 at the only major Allied force within easy reach, 707 00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:13,360 before they could be reinforced. 708 00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:16,000 He sought to interpose the French Army 709 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:18,600 between the armies of Prussia and Britain 710 00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:21,400 and then defeat them both in detail. 711 00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,120 He dispatched one force under Marshal Ney 712 00:47:24,120 --> 00:47:27,760 to engage the Anglo-Allied forces at Quatre Bras. 713 00:47:27,760 --> 00:47:30,640 But they were able to make an orderly withdrawal 714 00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,520 to a previously reconnoitred defensive position 715 00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,000 on the ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean. 716 00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,600 Meanwhile, Napoleon attacked the Prussians at Ligny, 717 00:47:39,600 --> 00:47:41,600 some nine miles away. 718 00:47:41,600 --> 00:47:45,440 The Prussians were defeated but able to re-organise. 719 00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:52,160 "Disperse to manoeuvre, concentrate to fight." 720 00:47:52,160 --> 00:47:57,080 That was a fundamental military maxim of Napoleon's warfare. 721 00:47:57,080 --> 00:48:02,720 And yet here, on the battlefield of Ligny, he did the exact opposite. 722 00:48:02,720 --> 00:48:05,800 Napoleon sent Marshal Grouchy off in that direction 723 00:48:05,800 --> 00:48:10,680 with 30,000 men and 98 guns to try to find the Prussians. 724 00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:14,080 He had no Council of War. He was given no advice. 725 00:48:14,080 --> 00:48:17,320 All the people who could have given him strategic advice - 726 00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,000 Lannes, Desaix - were dead. 727 00:48:21,000 --> 00:48:26,080 Now there was no-one close at hand to tell him that he was wrong. 728 00:48:27,600 --> 00:48:31,040 The Duke of Wellington later called it the most important decision 729 00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:32,840 of the 19th century, 730 00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:36,640 for Grouchy never found the Prussians till it was too late. 731 00:48:36,640 --> 00:48:40,920 In a brilliantly counter-intuitive move, the Prussian Chief of Staff 732 00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:45,560 took his forces northwards to stay in touch with the Anglo-Allied Army. 733 00:48:45,560 --> 00:48:50,680 It meant that 50,000 Prussians were now free to join battle. 734 00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:55,720 On the 18th of June, 1815, the day after a tumultuous thunderstorm, 735 00:48:55,720 --> 00:48:58,320 the French and Anglo-Allied armies 736 00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:00,760 were set to meet at Waterloo, 737 00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:04,200 on one of the smallest battlefields that Napoleon had ever fought on - 738 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:06,800 a little over three miles across. 739 00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:11,120 According to the Duke of Wellington, it would be "a battle of giants." 740 00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:15,280 For Napoleon... The battle that is coming will save France 741 00:49:15,280 --> 00:49:18,520 and will be remembered in the annals of the world. 742 00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:23,200 I shall have my artillery fire and my cavalry charge. 743 00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:41,120 Napoleon was marching up this road here 744 00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:46,520 with a force of 72,000 men and 246 guns, 745 00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:50,320 and he was going to try to break through Wellington's line, 746 00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:54,240 which really stretched the whole way here, up through there. 747 00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:58,760 And Wellington had 68,000 men and 157 guns. 748 00:49:58,760 --> 00:50:00,320 Now, for Napoleon, 749 00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:04,360 this was going to be a classic, central, massive thrust. 750 00:50:04,360 --> 00:50:08,800 But what he didn't know was that on the morning of the battle, 751 00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,320 Field Marshal Blucher, who was right over there in Wavre, 752 00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:15,600 about nine miles away, had promised Wellington 753 00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:18,600 that he was going to turn up with two army corps, 754 00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,240 which was about two thirds of his entire force, 755 00:50:21,240 --> 00:50:25,320 and he was going to smash in the French right flank. 756 00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:28,400 For Napoleon, the terms of engagement 757 00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:31,200 were about to change radically. 758 00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:36,960 The battle started with a fight 759 00:50:36,960 --> 00:50:40,360 developing at the Hougoumont farmhouse. 760 00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,600 Napoleon's options for the kind of grand, sweeping, 761 00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,240 outflanking manoeuvres that had won him so many battles in the past 762 00:50:47,240 --> 00:50:51,440 were closed down by the dispositions Wellington made 763 00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:53,600 and the topography off the ground. 764 00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:02,480 The farmhouse here at La Haye Sainte saw the crisis moment of the battle. 765 00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:06,680 It provided Napoleon with his last and best opportunity 766 00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:09,320 for breaking Wellington's line. 767 00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:13,000 So, he sent in his crack unit, the Imperial Guard, 768 00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:16,080 on both sides of this farmhouse. 769 00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:19,680 But it was a much depleted force because he'd had to send so many men 770 00:51:19,680 --> 00:51:23,400 to fight off the Prussians on his right flank. 771 00:51:23,400 --> 00:51:25,040 Throughout his career, 772 00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:29,400 Napoleon had tried to outflank and envelop his enemy. 773 00:51:29,400 --> 00:51:33,760 This time, his enemy was doing it to him. 774 00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:40,480 The French Imperial Guard was used to administering the coup de grace 775 00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:44,840 against a defeated enemy, but now Napoleon was forced to use it 776 00:51:44,840 --> 00:51:48,400 as a last-ditch attempt to save the day. 777 00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:52,360 This time they were simply unable to break through the enemy line. 778 00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:56,680 Once the Guard were seen to be thrust back, 779 00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,920 the French Army cried in shock "La garde recule!" 780 00:51:59,920 --> 00:52:02,760 A cry that had not been heard on any battlefield 781 00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:04,840 since the formation of the Guard. 782 00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:08,520 And it was the sign for the general disintegration of the French Army 783 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:10,520 across the entire front. 784 00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,160 At 8pm, the cry "Sauve qui peut!" went up. 785 00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:17,000 "Save yourselves!" 786 00:52:17,000 --> 00:52:20,440 And Napoleon took a comrade by the arm and said... 787 00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:23,120 Come, General, the affair is over. 788 00:52:23,120 --> 00:52:26,320 We've lost the day, let us be off. 789 00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,680 It was here that the Imperial Guard made its last stand 790 00:52:33,680 --> 00:52:35,520 at the Battle of Waterloo. 791 00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:38,720 Napoleon came here, amidst the utter chaos 792 00:52:38,720 --> 00:52:41,880 of a beaten and disintegrating army. 793 00:52:41,880 --> 00:52:45,040 He stayed as long as he could until there was no hope, 794 00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,400 and then he made his escape. 795 00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:50,720 It was a catastrophic defeat. 796 00:52:50,720 --> 00:52:53,200 And, unlike the retreat from Moscow, 797 00:52:53,200 --> 00:52:57,360 it was an escape from which there could be no return. 798 00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:09,880 One month after Waterloo, Napoleon surrendered to the British. 799 00:53:09,880 --> 00:53:14,000 "Incomprehensible day," he later said of the battle. 800 00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:18,560 "I sensed that fortune was abandoning me." 801 00:53:18,560 --> 00:53:21,440 Many complex theories have been advanced for his downfall 802 00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:23,800 but to my mind it's quite simple. 803 00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:30,120 Napoleon had launched an economic war against Britain, 804 00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:32,800 who had refused to make peace with him. 805 00:53:32,800 --> 00:53:36,840 To enforce the blockade, he had invaded Portugal and Spain 806 00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:39,920 which went wrong and badly weakened him. 807 00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,720 He entered into an alliance with Russia 808 00:53:42,720 --> 00:53:45,280 and had trusted Tsar Alexander. 809 00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:48,040 But the Tsar had reneged on the deal. 810 00:53:48,040 --> 00:53:52,120 To force Russia back into the fold, he invaded the country. 811 00:53:52,120 --> 00:53:54,680 The campaign was a disaster. 812 00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:57,360 The Napoleonic spell was over. 813 00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,800 In early August 1815, 814 00:54:10,800 --> 00:54:15,400 Napoleon left for exile on a remote volcanic island 815 00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,680 in the Atlantic Ocean. 816 00:54:17,680 --> 00:54:20,640 The British Government had dispatched him to a place 817 00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:25,360 where he would never again be able to disturb the peace of Europe. 818 00:54:35,360 --> 00:54:38,400 Napoleon sailed to Saint Helena humiliated. 819 00:54:38,400 --> 00:54:40,480 But at least he hadn't been executed, 820 00:54:40,480 --> 00:54:42,840 thanks to the decency of the British. 821 00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:44,920 The voyage lasted ten weeks 822 00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:47,720 and then he spent five and a half years on the island. 823 00:54:47,720 --> 00:54:49,680 It would have broken most men. 824 00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:51,720 But Napoleon, typically, 825 00:54:51,720 --> 00:54:55,200 used the time to become history's greatest exile. 826 00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:00,640 With supreme irony, 827 00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:03,840 Napoleon was held prisoner here at Longwood House, 828 00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:06,040 a place with all of the serene, 829 00:55:06,040 --> 00:55:09,880 stultifying atmosphere of an English suburban villa. 830 00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:14,560 It was to protect all of the gains of the French Revolution 831 00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:18,880 that Napoleon had built - an empire of 45 million people. 832 00:55:18,880 --> 00:55:22,440 He had enshrined the rights of the individual 833 00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,960 and the family in the Code Napoleon. 834 00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:30,080 He had fundamentally reformed a nation. 835 00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:34,400 Yet, his rule was undone by just two acts of aggression 836 00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:39,120 both designed to force Britain to the negotiating table. 837 00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:41,600 Napoleon hated Saint Helena. 838 00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:46,320 By 1821, he was thoroughly depressed and very ill. 839 00:55:46,320 --> 00:55:50,320 Like the ancient Athenian politician Themistocles, 840 00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:54,160 Napoleon "lived in the middle of the plains of Persia, 841 00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,360 "ever missing his country." 842 00:56:00,280 --> 00:56:04,040 Napoleon died here, in this very room. 843 00:56:04,040 --> 00:56:08,480 There have been endless conspiracy theories about how he was poisoned, 844 00:56:08,480 --> 00:56:11,880 but actually, when the seven doctors opened him up 845 00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:15,920 at the postmortem, they found that he had rampant stomach cancer, 846 00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:19,400 which was the disease that killed his father. 847 00:56:19,400 --> 00:56:24,080 For me, what's much more interesting is why didn't he commit suicide? 848 00:56:24,080 --> 00:56:26,680 He'd spoken about suicide, written about it, 849 00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:29,920 he admired figures in history who committed suicide and he had 850 00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:34,200 actually attempted to commit suicide himself, seven years earlier. 851 00:56:34,200 --> 00:56:37,840 He hated living on what he called "this accursed rock". 852 00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:41,720 He was terminally depressed and innately bored. 853 00:56:41,720 --> 00:56:44,880 Why didn't he do it? For whatever reason, 854 00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:49,160 he decided that he was going to let nature take its course. 855 00:56:49,160 --> 00:56:52,320 That required a different kind of courage. 856 00:56:56,960 --> 00:57:00,840 Napoleon was a man who gave birth to the modern. 857 00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:03,440 He fiercely promoted meritocracy 858 00:57:03,440 --> 00:57:07,920 and defended justice based upon reason, rather than feudal whim. 859 00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,960 As a young man, he idolised history's great captains - 860 00:57:11,960 --> 00:57:14,960 Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. 861 00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:17,040 By the time of his death, 862 00:57:17,040 --> 00:57:21,600 he achieved the ambition he once conceived of as a schoolboy - 863 00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:23,960 he had joined the Ancients. 864 00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:27,800 After Napoleon, there was no turning back 865 00:57:27,800 --> 00:57:32,000 from the days of feudal privilege, when an individual's worth 866 00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,720 was judged on his parents' social status, 867 00:57:34,720 --> 00:57:37,600 rather than the content of his character. 868 00:57:37,600 --> 00:57:40,560 In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, 869 00:57:40,560 --> 00:57:43,160 "the impetus of the French Revolution 870 00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:46,680 "was spread by the genius of Napoleon. 871 00:57:46,680 --> 00:57:50,000 "Ideals of liberty and nationalism 872 00:57:50,000 --> 00:57:53,120 "were imparted to all the peoples." 873 00:57:53,120 --> 00:57:57,320 It was a formidable and enduring legacy. 874 00:58:02,360 --> 00:58:04,840 19 years after his death, 875 00:58:04,840 --> 00:58:08,640 Napoleon's body was moved from Saint Helena to Paris. 876 00:58:12,080 --> 00:58:14,320 He was interred on the anniversary 877 00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:17,800 both of his coronation and the Battle of Austerlitz, 878 00:58:17,800 --> 00:58:22,520 the two greatest moments of an extraordinary life.