French forces in Spain were severely overstretched, as Napoleon withdrew the best troops for his invasion of Russia. Wellington saw an opportunity to strike. First he secured the strategic ...

Far from being a mere European conflict, the Napoleonic wars had global significance, with each big powerplay reverberating far beyond the devastated continent’s rocky shores. France fought its ...

Napoleon’s intervention in Spain and Portugal backfired spectacularly. The invasion sparked a mass revolt, led to France’s first major defeat at Bailén, and forced Napoleon into a grueling war. Here’s ...

Not even the best military commander can win a trade war, however. Napoleon made the fatal mistake of adopting the protectionism of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a 17th-century French finance minister ...

The French army has never fought this kind of war… It’s not at all the glorious war that they fought elsewhere. ELTING: At this point you begin to see a failure of Napoleon's judgment.

Alarmed by France’s growing power ... But as 1806 drew to a close, Napoleon was still at war. Austria and Prussia had both surrendered, but the Russians — bloodied after Austerlitz ...

This carving, made from animal bones, is unusual. It dates from the Napoleonic era and would have been made by a French prisoner of war based at a camp near Peterborough at the end of the ...

Conflict extended beyond Europe to include the colonies in what was known first as the 'French Revolutionary Wars' then the 'Napoleonic Wars'. In 1804 Napoleon, Emperor of France, made slavery ...