Characters

"Impossible is a word found only in the dictionary of fools."

Born in Corsica just months after France acquired the island from Genoa, Napoleon Bonaparte rose from a minor noble family of Italian descent to become the most powerful ruler in Europe. Educated at French military schools, he came to prominence during the Revolutionary Wars, seizing power in the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 1799) to become First Consul and later Emperor. A military genius of the first order, he revolutionized warfare through the corps system, speed of maneuver, and the decisive battle of annihilation. His legal, administrative, and educational reforms reshaped France and, through conquest, much of Europe. The Napoleonic Code remains the basis of civil law in dozens of countries today. Yet his insatiable ambition ultimately proved fatal — the Spanish ulcer, the Russian catastrophe, and the united opposition of all Europe brought him down twice.

"The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton."

Arthur Wellesley, the Iron Duke, was born in Dublin to an Anglo-Irish aristocratic family and forged his military reputation in India before facing Napoleon's marshals in Portugal and Spain. Methodical, cool under pressure, and masterful in defensive warfare, Wellington was Napoleon's antithesis in temperament if not in strategic genius. His Peninsular campaigns from 1808 to 1814 bled France white in a grinding war of attrition while his army grew steadily stronger. At Waterloo he demonstrated the art of defensive battle to perfection, holding his ridge against overwhelming French attacks until Blücher's Prussians arrived to complete the victory. He later served as Prime Minister of Britain and remained a towering figure in British public life until his death at age 83.

"England expects that every man will do his duty."

Horatio Nelson was Britain's greatest naval hero, a commander who combined tactical brilliance with personal courage to the point of recklessness — losing his right eye at Calvi and his right arm at Tenerife. He shattered French naval power at the Nile in 1798 and destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in 1801. At Trafalgar in 1805 he devised and executed an audacious two-column attack that annihilated the Franco-Spanish fleet, but he insisted on wearing his full-dress uniform with his decorations clearly visible and was shot by a French sharpshooter from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable. He survived three hours below decks, long enough to learn the scope of his victory, and died saying 'Thank God I have done my duty.' His body was preserved in a cask of brandy for the voyage home.

"Forward! Always forward!"

Michel Ney, 'the bravest of the brave' as Napoleon called him, was the son of a barrel-maker who rose through the Revolutionary armies by sheer valor to become one of the most celebrated marshals of the Empire. At Borodino he commanded the center and led assaults on the Great Redoubt. During the retreat from Moscow he commanded the rear-guard with extraordinary courage, earning the title 'last man out of Russia.' During the Hundred Days he promised Louis XVIII he would bring Napoleon back in an iron cage, then defected to his old master with his entire force. At Waterloo he led reckless cavalry charges that exhausted French horsemen without breaking Wellington's squares, and at the climax commanded the final Imperial Guard attack. After Napoleon's second abdication, Ney was tried for treason and shot by firing squad in Paris.

"Napoleon or I — Europe cannot hold us both."

Alexander I came to the Russian throne in 1801 under a cloud — his father Paul I had been murdered in a palace coup that Alexander may have sanctioned. Educated in Enlightenment ideals by his Swiss tutor La Harpe, he initially admired Napoleon and met him personally at Tilsit in 1807, where the two emperors concluded a famous alliance on a raft in the middle of the Niemen River. Yet Alexander's embrace of Napoleon was always ambivalent, and his resistance to the Continental System and his ambitions in Poland eroded the alliance. When Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812, Alexander refused all peace negotiations even as Moscow burned, a decision that proved fatally correct. He led the Coalition armies into Paris in 1814 and styled himself the 'liberator of Europe,' playing a central role at the Congress of Vienna and founding the Holy Alliance.

"Forward! Never mind the difficulty!"

Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher was the soul of Prussian resistance to Napoleon — aggressive, tenacious, and utterly fearless despite being in his seventies during the Waterloo campaign. Known as 'Marschall Vorwärts' (Marshal Forwards) for his relentless offensive spirit, he was the antithesis of cautious Prussian generals. Defeated multiple times by Napoleon, he never stayed down. At the Battle of Nations in Leipzig he was instrumental in coordinating the Coalition armies that finally overwhelmed France. During the Waterloo campaign, though thrown from his horse and ridden over at Ligny, he was back on horseback within hours ordering the march that saved Wellington. His timely arrival at Waterloo on the evening of June 18 completed the decisive victory. Wellington called him the greatest general he had ever served alongside.

"An army that cannot be stopped by anything."

Louis-Nicolas Davout was arguably Napoleon's most capable marshal — the only one to never suffer a defeat. A stern disciplinarian and meticulous organizer, he combined administrative brilliance with aggressive tactical instinct. At Auerstedt in 1806 he achieved the extraordinary feat of defeating the main Prussian army of 63,000 with his single corps of 27,000, a victory so improbable that Napoleon initially refused to believe it. He held Hamburg for France until months after Napoleon's abdication. Cool, humorless, and utterly loyal to Napoleon — but to France more than the man — he was one of the few marshals who never betrayed his emperor for personal advancement. Wellington, when asked who was the greatest French commander, reportedly named Davout.

"It is impossible to say how much I love you and how much I miss you."

Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie on the Caribbean island of Martinique, Joséphine was a widow with two children when she met Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795. Their passionate and turbulent marriage shaped the early years of the Consulate and Empire. Napoleon's letters to her from his Italian campaigns are among the most ardent love letters in history, yet she remained largely indifferent to his devotion while he was away. As Empress she became a powerful arbiter of Parisian fashion and culture, transforming Malmaison into a center of art and horticulture — her rose gardens influenced European floriculture for a century. The marriage's great tragedy was Joséphine's inability to produce an heir, leading Napoleon in 1809 to divorce her and marry the Austrian archduchess Marie Louise. Joséphine died at Malmaison in 1814, reportedly whispering 'Napoleon... Elba... Marie Louise.'

"They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing."

The ultimate survivor of French political life, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord served as a bishop under the ancien régime, diplomat under the Revolution, Foreign Minister under Napoleon, and chief French negotiator at the Congress of Vienna — serving what he called 'France' rather than any particular government. He was born with a club foot that exempted him from military service and steered him toward the Church and diplomacy. As Napoleon's Foreign Minister he was instrumental in the diplomatic triumphs of Amiens and Tilsit, but he secretly turned against Napoleon around 1807, convinced his master's ambitions would destroy France. He secretly informed the Tsar of Napoleon's plans and at Vienna maneuvered France back into the concert of great powers with remarkable skill, securing far better terms than defeated France deserved.

"The only defeat I have ever suffered was at Waterloo."

Nicolas Soult, Duke of Dalmatia, was one of Napoleon's most accomplished marshals and later one of France's most powerful statesmen. At Austerlitz he commanded the corps that stormed the Pratzen Heights in Napoleon's great master-stroke, one of the most perfectly executed tactical operations in military history. In the Peninsular War he fought Wellington for years in Portugal and Spain, earning a bitter rivalry — Wellington considered him the most capable of all the French marshals opposing him. During the Hundred Days he served as Napoleon's Chief of Staff, a role for which his abilities were less suited than field command. After Napoleon's fall he survived to serve as Prime Minister of France three times under the restored monarchy, holding that office as late as 1847.