50 Fun Facts About Napoleonic Wars

Britain declared war on France, opening the Napoleonic Wars, on 18 May of which year?

The declaration ended the short peace of the Treaty of Amiens.

Which 1805 battle is usually considered Napoleon's greatest victory?

He inflicted 25,000 casualties on a larger Austro-Russian army while losing fewer than 7,000.

Whose Austrian army surrendered to Napoleon at Ulm in October 1805?

Mack's roughly 72,000 men were surrounded with barely a fight.

Which British admiral died winning the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805?

Napoleon never again had the chance to challenge Britain at sea or threaten invasion.

Which admiral commanded the Franco-Spanish fleet defeated at Trafalgar?

He had been blockaded in Cádiz before sailing for Naples.

How many troops did Napoleon mass at Boulogne for a planned invasion of Britain?

The army marched east from Boulogne in July 1805 to face Austria instead.

Which December 1805 agreement took Austria out of the Third Coalition?

Austria ceded Venetia to the Kingdom of Italy and the Tyrol to Bavaria.

Napoleon formed which grouping of small German states in July 1806?

He raised the rulers of Saxony and Bavaria to the rank of king.

On 14 October 1806 Napoleon won at Jena while which marshal won at Auerstädt?

Davout's single corps defeated the bulk of the Prussian army.

After entering Berlin in 1806, Napoleon had his marshals remove hats at whose tomb?

'If he were alive we wouldn't be here today,' he said.

How many days did Napoleon need to knock Prussia out of the war in 1806?

Jena, Auerstädt and the capture of Berlin destroyed Prussia's principal armies.

Which February 1807 battle against the Russians ended in a bloody tactical draw?

Napoleon's decisive win at Friedland followed four months later.

Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I made peace in July 1807 at which town?

New client states followed, including the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Westphalia.

Britain answered Napoleon's trade blockade by bombarding which capital in 1807?

The Royal Navy seized the Dano-Norwegian fleet in August 1807.

Who was Grand Duke of Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw?

Napoleon appointed the intendants who actually ran the country.

Napoleon's Berlin Decree of November 1806 established what?

It aimed to close French-controlled Europe to British trade.

Which brother did Napoleon install as King of Spain in 1808?

The move sparked popular rebellion and the Peninsular War.

Historian David Gates called the Peninsular War what?

Napoleon himself wrote, 'That unfortunate war destroyed me.'

Behind which fortifications did Wellington's army shelter near Lisbon?

Their Spanish allies were besieged in Cádiz at the time.

How many major battles did the Peninsular War see, the most of any Napoleonic conflict?

It also featured 30 major sieges and lasted more than six years.

The British withdrew from Spain after which battle on 16 January 1809?

Napoleon left the peninsula afterwards and never returned.

Which 1809 battle was Napoleon's first significant tactical defeat?

Archduke Charles failed to follow up and Napoleon won at Wagram weeks later.

Which marshal, sacked mid-battle at Wagram, soon became Crown Prince of Sweden?

He later fought against his former emperor.

The 1809 Walcheren Expedition failed to capture which French-held naval base?

Its commander, the Earl of Chatham, never reached the objective.

Tyrolese rebels who kept fighting after the Treaty of Schönbrunn were led by whom?

They were finally defeated in November 1809.

Napoleon married which Austrian archduchess in 1810?

The match aimed to secure Austria and provide the heir Joséphine had not.

Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat ruled which kingdom?

He married Napoleon's sister Caroline and was executed by firing squad in 1815.

The Grande Armée crossed which river to invade Russia on 24 June 1812?

Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War; Napoleon called it a Second Polish War.

Roughly how large was the Grande Armée that invaded Russia in 1812?

Only about 200,000 were French; Poles alone supplied nearly 100,000.

Which Baltic German commander led the Russian retreat before being replaced by Kutuzov?

His scorched-earth withdrawal worked but made him unpopular with the Russian elite.

Which 7 September 1812 battle was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars?

More than 250,000 men fought and at least 70,000 became casualties.

Who ordered Moscow burnt as Napoleon entered in September 1812?

Criminals had also been released from the prisons to inconvenience the French.

Which indecisive battle blocked Napoleon's road to Kaluga and doomed the retreat?

It forced the French back onto the already stripped Smolensk road.

About how many fit soldiers remained when the Grande Armée crossed the Berezina?

Some 380,000 were dead or missing and 100,000 captured.

For every six Grande Armée soldiers who entered Russia, how many left in fighting condition?

The Russians lost around 210,000 men but replenished quickly.

Metternich's Frankfurt proposals of 1813 offered Napoleon what?

He rejected them, accepted too late in 1814, and then faced harsher terms.

The 1813 clash at Leipzig is also known by what name?

Around 191,000 French faced more than 300,000 Allies.

Wellington's June 1813 victory at which battle finally broke French power in Spain?

Joseph Bonaparte's army was beaten and the French retreated over the Pyrenees.

Which British prime minister was assassinated in 1812, mid-way through the wars?

Robert Jenkinson, Lord Liverpool, took over until the wars ended.

Which financier organised bullion shipments to Wellington's armies from London in 1813–15?

He also arranged the payment of British subsidies to continental allies.

British subsidies to continental allies were nicknamed what?

Under an 1803 deal Britain paid £1.5 million per 100,000 Russian soldiers in the field.

The Allies entered Paris on 30 March 1814; Napoleon abdicated on which date?

He was exiled to Elba and Louis XVIII restored to the throne.

Napoleon escaped Elba and landed where on 1 March 1815?

He reached Paris gathering support and overthrew Louis XVIII, beginning the Hundred Days.

Two days before Waterloo, Napoleon defeated the Prussians at which battle?

Ney fought a simultaneous blocking action against Wellington at Quatre Bras.

Which marshal was sent to stop the Prussians regrouping but reached Wavre 12 hours late?

Some 17,000 Prussians kept 33,000 French reinforcements away from Waterloo.

Why did Napoleon delay the start of Waterloo on the morning of 18 June 1815?

The previous night's rain had soaked the battlefield.

Napoleon surrendered to a British squadron at which port on 15 July 1815?

He was sent to Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.

Which agreement of 20 November 1815 formally ended the Napoleonic Wars?

The Congress of Vienna had already redrawn the map of Europe.

At the war's end Denmark was forced to cede which country to Sweden?

Norway resisted, prompting a short Swedish–Norwegian war in 1814.

Europe enjoyed no great-power war after 1815 until which conflict in 1853?

The Congress of Vienna's balance of power held for nearly four decades.