Napoleonic era · 1769–1821
Why Was Napoleon Exiled — Twice?
Napoleon was exiled twice because he came back the first time. After the catastrophic invasion of Russia (1812) and defeat by a European coalition, he abdicated in 1814 and was sent to Elba, a small island near Italy he was allowed to rule. He escaped after ten months, retook power in France without firing a shot (the "Hundred Days"), and was finally beaten at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. The Allies then removed him to Saint Helena — a remote South Atlantic rock 2,000 km from any continent — where he died in 1821.
Key facts
- Napoleon invaded Russia with roughly 600,000 men; barely tens of thousands staggered back — destroyed less by battle than by winter, hunger, typhus, and the endless retreat.
- On Elba, Napoleon was — absurdly — still an emperor: the treaty let him keep the title and rule the island, where he reorganized everything from roads to the tiny navy in ten restless months.
- Sent to arrest him after his escape, the 5th Line Infantry instead joined him when he opened his coat and dared them to shoot their emperor — he entered Paris without a shot fired.
- The Hundred Days cost Europe one final bloodbath: Waterloo left around 50,000 dead and wounded in a single day on a few square kilometers.
- He was not short: about 1.70 m (5'7"), average for his era. The myth mixes French vs English measurement units with wartime caricature.
- On Saint Helena he dictated his memoirs, crafting his own legend so successfully that historians still argue with it; he died there on 5 May 1821, most likely of stomach cancer.
The empire overreaches: Russia, 1812
By 1811 Napoleon dominated continental Europe from Madrid to Warsaw — as emperor of France, king of Italy, and master of a web of client states. What broke the empire was not a battle but a campaign: in June 1812, to force Russia back into his economic blockade of Britain, he led the largest army Europe had ever seen — some 600,000 men from twenty nations — across the Niemen. The Russians refused to be destroyed, trading space for time and scorching the earth behind them. Napoleon took Moscow in September; the city burned around him, the Tsar declined to negotiate, and there was nothing left to conquer but distance.
The retreat, begun too late in the season, became one of military history's greatest catastrophes — cold, starvation, typhus, and Cossack raids annihilated the Grande Armée. Napoleon lost over half a million men, and Europe noticed the spell was breakable. Prussia, Austria, Russia, Sweden, and Britain formed the Sixth Coalition; at Leipzig in October 1813 — the "Battle of the Nations," the biggest in Europe before WWI — Napoleon was decisively beaten, and by March 1814 the Allies were in Paris.
First exile: the emperor of Elba
His marshals refusing to march further, Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau in April 1814. The Allies' terms, by the standard of what he'd cost Europe, were bizarrely generous: by the Treaty of Fontainebleau he kept the imperial title and received the Mediterranean island of Elba — 224 km², just off the Italian coast — as a sovereign micro-state, with an income promised from France and a guard of 600 volunteers. The restored Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, took the French throne.
The arrangement lasted ten months. Napoleon, characteristically, governed his toy kingdom at full intensity — mines, roads, agriculture — while reading French newspapers: the Bourbons were unpopular, his pension went unpaid, and the Congress of Vienna buzzed with talk of deporting him somewhere safer. In February 1815 he slipped past the patrols with about 1,000 men and landed in southern France.
The Hundred Days and Waterloo
What followed may be the most audacious political comeback ever attempted. Marching north through the Alps, Napoleon met the troops sent to stop him at Laffrey, walked into musket range alone, opened his greatcoat and called out that if any soldier wished to kill his emperor, here he was. The regiment broke into cheers and changed sides; so, days later, did Marshal Ney, who had promised the king to bring Napoleon back "in an iron cage." On 20 March 1815 he entered Paris — carried, witnesses said, up the palace steps by the crowd — without a shot having been fired. Louis XVIII had already fled.
Europe's answer was immediate: the powers at Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw and mobilized. His only chance was to smash the Allied armies in Belgium before the Russians and Austrians arrived. He nearly did — beating the Prussians at Ligny on 16 June — but two days later, at Waterloo, Wellington's line held through a day of slaughter until Blücher's Prussians arrived at dusk and the French army disintegrated. Four days later Napoleon abdicated again; his rule had lasted about a hundred days. Unable to escape to America, he surrendered to a British warship, gambling on asylum in England.
Saint Helena: the rock with no return
Britain was not fooled twice. Elba had proven that Napoleon plus proximity equaled war, so the second exile was chosen for one quality above all: distance. Saint Helena is a volcanic island of 122 km² in the South Atlantic, roughly 1,900 km from Africa and 2,900 km from Brazil, garrisoned and ringed by patrolling warships. There would be no boat to steal, no garrison to charm.
He spent five and a half damp years at Longwood House with a shrinking court of loyalists, feuding with his British custodian and dictating memoirs that spun defeat into legend — the liberal reformer undone by reactionary kings. The self-portrait was selective, but it worked on posterity. He died on 5 May 1821, aged 51; the autopsy indicated stomach cancer, the disease that had killed his father (persistent arsenic-poisoning theories are not supported by mainstream scholarship — arsenic was ubiquitous in the era's wallpaper and medicines). In 1840 the British allowed his remains home: a million Parisians watched the funeral cortège, and he lies today under the dome of Les Invalides — while his real monument, the Napoleonic Code, still underpins civil law in dozens of countries.
Timeline at a glance
- Jun 1812 — Invasion of Russia with ~600,000 men; catastrophic winter retreat follows
- Oct 1813 — Defeat at Leipzig, the "Battle of the Nations"
- Apr 1814 — First abdication; exile to Elba — with the title of emperor intact
- 26 Feb 1815 — Escapes Elba with ~1,000 men; reaches Paris in three weeks, unopposed
- 18 Jun 1815 — Waterloo — final defeat; second abdication four days later
- Oct 1815 — Landed on Saint Helena, 2,000+ km from the nearest mainland
- 5 May 1821 — Dies at Longwood House, aged 51
Frequently asked questions
How did Napoleon escape from Elba?
Rather easily — Elba was his own miniature kingdom, complete with a 600-man guard and a few ships. On 26 February 1815, while the British commissioner was away, he embarked about 1,000 men on the brig Inconstant and small transports, slipped past patrols, and landed near Antibes two days later. The hard part — winning France back — he accomplished with pure theater, turning every force sent against him to his side.
How did Napoleon die?
On 5 May 1821 on Saint Helena, aged 51. The autopsy, performed by his own physician with British doctors present, found extensive stomach cancer — the disease that had killed his father. Recurring arsenic-murder theories rest on hair samples, but arsenic exposure was routine in that era, and mainstream historians accept the cancer diagnosis.
Was Napoleon really short?
No — he stood about 1.70 m (5'7"), average or slightly above for a Frenchman of his time. The myth comes from confusion between French and English inches, his nickname 'le petit caporal' (an endearment, not a measurement), and relentless British caricature. His Imperial Guard grenadiers, selected for height, also made him look small by contrast.
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