Napoleon Buonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte
The Short Corsican

Napoleon has often been regarded as the most talented (and shortest!) general of the last millennium, but his largest impact on Europe was after the wars. It is true that he led most of France¡¯s young men to their death, but the reason why is often unknown. France was already in shambles, but Napoleon turned the whole country into an armed camp. Although he was originally considered a great hero, his eventual defeat made him the creature of horror stories told by mothers to their children.
Although he was always considered a Frenchmen, he was actually a native of Corsica, an island off the coast of the French-Italian border. His family lived in the coastal city of Ajaccio, which was where he was born on August 15,1769. None of his Ancestors had ever been a soldier, but his father had been a Corsican Patriot. Because his father later became a member of the French Aristocracy, he was educated in Paris at a military school at the expens...