The Age of Napoleon
by Alistair Horne
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £14.99, pp. 182, ISBN 029760791X
More words have been written about Napoleon than about any other historical figure, even Abraham Lincoln. Whether he betrayed, or carried on, the French Revolution is a question that agitates historians. Certainly the seeds of the French urge to mastery over Europe were sown before Napoleon swept the Directory aside and installed himself as the autocrat of France. By 1807, having routed the Austrians and Prussians at Jena and Austerlitz and made peace with Alexander I of Russia at Tilsit, he commanded the Continent. One enemy remained, but after the destruction of the French navy at Trafalgar the ambition to conquer Great Britain lay in ruins. Did Napoleon seriously contemplate absorbing the Ottoman empire, thereby opening up a route to prise India from Great Britain? The failed campaign in Egypt in 1798 suggested that he did.
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