In another, he tore the Prussian realm asunder and enforced a continental boycott of Britain that spanned from Corunna to St. In one fell sweep, he ended the Holy Roman Empire for his own Confederation of the Rhine, stealing the German states from Austria’s orbit and adding them to his own hegemony.
He found ways to gain ground on the defensive. Yet with each coalition, each united offensive, each calculated effort to apprehend their antithetical nemesis, Napoleon’s tactical genius prevailed. There would be an abdication, or there would be no peace at all. As their betrayals of treaties and ceasefires accumulated into an expectation, it became clear that the European leaders viewed his regime as an existential threat to theirs. Still, he aligned himself in opposition to the conservative absolute monarchies that surrounded his fledgling French Empire.
With a laurel crown upon his head and the Grande Armee at his command, Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, led his sovereign proto-nation down a path diverging from the Republican principles it fought so long to uphold, espousing devotion to the spirit of the revolution under autocratic rule – his rule.
