Introduction
Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French on December 2nd, 1804. He dreamt of a European empire, and as Jawaharlal Nehru recalls here on land none could resist him. On the seas, however, it was another story. Barely a year into his imperial reign Napoleon was forced to accept two facts: he would never command the seas, and he would never conquer Britain.
FOR ten years he was Emperor, and during these years he rushed about all over the Continent of Europe and carried on striking military campaigns and won memorable battles. All Europe trembled at his name and was dominated by him as it has never been dominated by anyone else before or since.* Marengo (this was in 1800, when he crossed with his army the Great St Bernard pass in Switzerland, all covered with the winter snow), Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Wagram, are the names of some of his famous victories on land.* Austria, Prussia and Russia all collapsed before him.* Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, a great part of Germany called the Confederation of the Rhine,* Poland called now the Duchy of Warsaw,* were all subject States. The old Holy Roman Empire, which had long existed in name only, was finally ended.*
* Writing in 1934, Nehru could not know that history was ready to repeat itself. Following the occupation of northern Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Adolf Hitler gloried in the same breakneck pace of victories, annexations and alliances. By 1941, Europe’s newest master had control of lands from Greece to Norway and Finland, and from the western Ukraine to much of North Africa. Once again, Britain held out, and only her imperial possessions in Egypt and the Middle East stood between Nazi Germany and Nehru’s India. The threat should London fall was felt very keenly: see Hearts of Steel. In 1801, Napoleon had also planned to take India with help from Russia, but on that occasion the arrangement fell through owing to the assassination of Emperor Paul I.
* Nehru picks out seven well-known battles: Marengo (14 June, 1800), a victory over Austrian forces near the Piedmontese city of Alessandri in Italy; Ulm (16-19 October, 1805), in which Napoleon’s Grand Army captured a much smaller Austrian army and asserted control of Bavaria; Austerlitz (2 December 1805), a decisive victory over Austria at what is now Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic; Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806), a celebrated victory for Napoleon over the Kingdom of Prussia; Eylau (7-8 February 1807), a strategically inconclusive engagement with Prussia at what is now Bagrationovsk in Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast; Friedland (14 June, 1807), a victory near what is now Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad Oblast, over the army of Emperor Alexander I of Russia, who by the unequal Treaty of Tilsit confirmed Napoleon’s control of western and central Europe; and Wagram (5–6 July, 1809), a victory over the Austrian Empire.
* At this juncture, Russia’s Emperor Alexander I was starstruck by Napoleon’s genius as a commander, but a direct assault on Moscow in 1812 (prompted by Napoleon’s fear that Russia and the United Kingdom might combine against him) put things back into perspective. See Retreat from Moscow.
* That is to say, that in 1806 Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine out of states formerly belonging to the Holy Roman Empire. It lasted until 1813.
* That is to say, by the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 Poland was ceded by Prussia to France, and became a client state named the Duchy of Warsaw. It ended with Napoleon’s fall in 1815.
* The Holy Roman Empire, which reached back a thousand years to the coronation of Charlemagne in 800, was finally dissolved on August 1st, 1806, when Francis II (r. 1792-1835), who was also Emperor Francis I of Austria (r. 1804–35), King Francis of Hungary (r. 1792–1830) and King Francis of Bohemia (r. 1792–1835), abolished the now largely honorific title of Holy Roman Emperor just in time to stop Napoleon assuming it himself.
Précis
In 1934, Jawaharlal Nehru looked back over the first ten years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s spectacular career as Emperor of France. He counted off his military victories, and catalogued the nations that had fallen before him, culminating in the dissolution of Holy Roman Empire after a thousand years. No one, Nehru said, had ever lorded it over Europe so completely. (59 / 60 words)
In 1934, Jawaharlal Nehru looked back over the first ten years of Napoleon Bonaparte’s spectacular career as Emperor of France. He counted off his military victories, and catalogued the nations that had fallen before him, culminating in the dissolution of Holy Roman Empire after a thousand years. No one, Nehru said, had ever lorded it over Europe so completely.
Variations: 1.increase the length of this precis to exactly 65 words. 2.reduce the length of this precis to exactly 55 words. 3.introduce one of the following words into the precis: besides, despite, must, or, otherwise, since, unless, until.
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