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Napoleon and the Wars of the First and Second Coalitions

Overview of the first two coalitions against France and Napoleon's roles in them. Created by Sal Khan.

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  • male robot hal style avatar for user Noah Jacob Tyler
    Is there any record of what exactly happened to the troops Napoleon abandoned in the Middle East?
    (33 votes)
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    • leaf green style avatar for user Aberwyvern
      They were besieged in Alexandria, and surrendered to the British in 1801, the British then took most of the treasures that the french had looted from the ancient tombs, this is why for example the Rosetta stone is in London today and not Paris.
      (59 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user josuer2015
    what happened that made napolion fail in his plans
    (16 votes)
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  • mr pants teal style avatar for user Ryan Slater
    Did Napoleon have any allies in the coalitions?
    (14 votes)
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    • leaf red style avatar for user Jose Ramos
      actually he had a few the Spanish who in the final yaears of Napoleons reign were his enemys. There were also the Poles who also helped him in some campaigns the Polish were especially gratefull to help the French because they believed Napoleon freed them from Austrian rule.
      (4 votes)
  • old spice man green style avatar for user Don Spence
    Did Sal mean to include Switzerland (Helvetian Republic) as part of France? I thought the Swiss were independent since the 14 or 1500's, way before Bonaparte.
    (9 votes)
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  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Arthur Miranda
    How did France afford all the wars? I mean, wars cost a lot and Sal says that the country was broke. Was it all pillaging during the attacks on other countries?
    (8 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Jet Simon
      First of all there was no Italy until the 1870s but there were Italian city-states (just like the Greeks) and eventually they would unify as one nation. France did afford all these wars because by taxing the people and also selling land like the Louisiana purchase in 1803 to the United States. Napoleon had to sell that territory because he needed money to keep up with the war effort in Europe. France was broke before Napoleon came into power because previous rulers such as Louis XIV and Louis XVI spent much of their money on waging war (helping the American revolution, nine years war, seven years war, and etc.) The kings taxed the peasants and the lower classes (3rd Estate) the most and taxes was one of the key problems for the French revolution. And to answer the second part of your question, I wouldn't say that France was "pillaging" (not too much) instead it was dominating under Napoleon's rule because France was defeating most of its enemies (except for Britain at sea). But I would say that France did pillaged countries like Russia during Napoleon's invasion of Russia despite Russia used a scorched earth policy to get rid of resources.
      (11 votes)
  • leafers tree style avatar for user Julian Lulu
    what happened to Egypt? because last video it said he took over egypt
    (6 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Jet Simon
      Napoleon eventually was trapped at sea when he won his battles in Egypt so he tried to go to escape by invading Syria which the combined British and Ottoman forces defeated him. Also, the sea was not accessible because Horatio Nelson and the British Navy won the Battle of Nile which doomed Napoleon's chance of escaping. So he decided to leave his 25,000 troops there which they eventually were defeated or captured by the British forces, and escape to France (the French people thought he won the campaigns in Egypt)
      (6 votes)
  • mr pants teal style avatar for user Ryan Slater
    How did Napoleon anger so many different nations?
    (6 votes)
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    • female robot grace style avatar for user 00015651
      Napoleon's rise propagated the fervor of nationalism. Which in later years would become the new type of governmental system that Europeans would want. This shift created the conservative order represented by the coalitions but also the fear of one country being stronger than the other hence the importance of the balance of power. The coaltions after Napoleon was finally defeated came up with the concept of the principle of intervention which allowed other states to interfere in foreign states policies to protect foreign governments from nationalism and liberalism.
      (8 votes)
  • mr pants teal style avatar for user Ryan Slater
    I wonder how Napoleon had time to be Emperor and army commander?
    (5 votes)
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  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user jeffreyscuff
    Did Scandinavia have a role in the Napoleonic Wars?
    (5 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user matthewkang8
    What happened to his army at Egypt.
    (4 votes)
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    • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user La Rouquine
      Well, he left one of his most competent officers, General Kléber, in charge of the soldiers he left behind. But alas, the Egyptians began to rebel and assassinated Kléber in the process, and forced the remaining soldiers to return to France as a condition of their treaty. I believe the Egyptians' rebellion may have been spurred on or somehow financed by the British, who had very good reason to want more of Napoléon's soldiers killed without doing it themselves.

      I know all of this because there is a métro stop named Kléber near the neighborhood of Paris where I used to live, and there was a display one could read while waiting for a train.
      (6 votes)

Video transcript

What I want to do is give you a broad overview of all of the wars that France was in at this time. And then talk about in a little bit more detail exactly what Napoleon was up to. And his role in either beginning or ending many of these wars. So you might remember from 1792 to 1797, you had your war of the First Coalition. And the players there were Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain. I'll just write Britain for short. And this was essentially started by the French. You might remember, King Louis XVI was alive then. He supported the war, because he thought that they would lose and maybe reinstate him. Or that it would make him popular. The revolutionaries liked the war because they wanted to spread the Revolution. And you might remember it ended at the Treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, due mainly to Napoleon's victories in Italy. At that time, he was in charge of the Italian campaign. And the government of France at that time was the Directory. In power to a large degree because of Napoleon's ability to defend them. Then from 1798-- let me do this in a different color-- from 1798 to 1802, you have the Second Coalition. Now you might immediately see, Napoleon took power at the end of 1799. So this war spanned some of the Directory being in control and some of Napoleon as First Consul being in control. And here the players-- once again you have Austria and Great Britain-- they tend to be always at war with France at this period, especially Great Britain. And instead of Prussia, you have Russia. And actually, just to help you visualize what the Austrian Empire looked like at this time-- and the Prussian Empire, this map doesn't do it justice. Let me go down to this map. That's in 1810. Let me go a little bit earlier here. This is in 1805. And I'll draw the boundaries a little bit bolder than they did. So this is France. These are the boundaries of France. Actually, it was able to take some territory in what is now Italy. I could do the whole boundary if you like, but I think you get the idea. But the one empire that existed then that doesn't exist in its current form, was Prussia. Doesn't even exist at all. There is no Prussian Empire, or Prussian nation, or the country of Prussia anymore. You can see there it had some overlap with Germany, some overlap with Poland, some other countries, won't go into detail there. Then you have the Austrian Empire. Austrian Empire is right over there. As you can see, it encompasses much more than just the modern nation or country of Austria. Then you have the Russian Empire, which, give or take, looks not too different than Russia today. But the big difference between the world-- there's many differences-- between the world now and the world then was that there was no nation of Germany. You had a bunch of people speaking German, but they were divided into a bunch of small little states. This map doesn't show it. Some of them were under Austrian control, some of them were under Prussian control. And this loose confederation of German kingdoms and states, this was called the Holy Roman Empire. Let me write that down. And as Voltaire famously said, they were neither holy, nor Roman-- they didn't speak Latin, they weren't Italian, they were German. It wasn't holy, this wasn't controlled by a religious figure. And it wasn't an empire, it wasn't a tightly-controlled state that was kind of expanding its boundaries. It was just a loose confederation of kingdoms. So that gives you a visualization of what the world looked like right then. So with that in mind, let me go back to my overview. Right there. And then the Second Coalition, in 1801 you had the Treaty of Luneville. Once again, this was a defeat of the Austrians, mainly due to the military capabilities. Napoleon was now in charge of France. But he led once again, an Italian campaign against the Austrians. This is his victory in Marengo right there. I'll go into a little more detail on that. And that essentially declared victory on Austria, allowed Napoleon to take more territory along the Italian peninsula. You can see it right there. And then later he had the Treaty of Amiens with the British in 1802. And that really ended the coalition. I guess you could say the coalition ended in 1801, because Austria was out of it. Russia was kind of just passively observing. They participated. But they didn't really give or take or lose anything. And then I could say at this point the United Kingdom, essentially I guess the best explanation of why that it was war fatigue. But we'll see that they weren't tired for long. Because then in May of 1803, you have the beginning of your Third Coalition . And then I'll go to a little bit more detail about this. The Third Coalition, Britain declares war on what we could call the French Empire. And this isn't going to end until 1805. So you can see, Great Britain is essentially at war almost continuously. There's a few gaps give or take. But there's always this tension. This is the Third Coalition. And once again, I could write the United Kingdom if you like, because they actually now are the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. You have the United Kingdom in there, we have Russia in there. And once again, we have Austria. And there were other players. There was Portugal. But these were the prime players. And we'll see in this video that this, the war of the Third Coalition, really ended with Napoleon being the dominant power in Europe. And ended with him essentially thinking that he is unstoppable. So I'll do a little bit more detail on that. This resulted in 1805, with the then Emperor Napoleon. And we'll talk about how he became emperor. But in 1805, Napoleon-- maybe I should say 1806, because this ended at the end of 1805-- Napoleon views himself as unstoppable, as invincible. He got some good victories that fed his already large ego. So with this as an overview, let's review a little bit of the life of Napoleon and the roles that he directly played in pretty much all of these conflicts. So the first time we heard about Napoleon was in 1793. And I'll just draw it right here. You're might remember, there were all of these Royalist insurrections going on against the revolutionary government. And they had this bright artillery captain in Toulon who put down an uprising there in 1793. He got some, I guess you could say, France-wide, or nationwide fame from doing that. Then in 1795, you might remember, the Directory was trying to get formed in Paris. So this is 1793. Then in 1795-- let me do a better color than that. That's hard to read. In 1795, he defended the Tuileries by essentially sending out that grapeshot and mowing down people to keep the Royalists from taking out the revolutionary government. So once again, hugely, hugely popular. So all of that was occurring during the war of the First Coalition. And then Napoleon was made the general in charge of the Italian campaign. And in 1797, he was essentially able to end the war of the First Coalition in a victorious way for France by defeating Austria and Italy. And that ended the First Coalition with the Campo Formio. This was Napoleon. Then, you might remember, OK, he's this hugely popular guy. He actually started publishing some newspapers. And he actually sent some military generals to put down further counter revolutions on the part of the Royalists. So he became even more and more popular. And the Directory was a little bit afraid of him at this point. So they said, hey why don't you go do whatever you want. And that's when Napoleon left from Toulon and he went to Egypt. He went to Egypt with his visions of grandeur, where he did all of the damage down there. And killed and won multiple wars against the Ottomans in both Egypt and Syria. But unfortunately for him, his good friend Horatio Nelson destroyed his whole fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Horatio-- let me draw that in a darker color. So that is Horatio Nelson destroyed his entire fleet there. So they were stranded. In 1799, Napoleon was essentially able to abandon all of his troops and then come back to France on his own. So this is in 1799, Napoleon makes his way back to France. And then we saw in the last video, he takes power with two of the directors as the three consuls of France. But in short order, he is able to declare himself as First Consul in 1799. This is hard to read. And is essentially the dictator, or the authoritarian ruler, of France. But all of while this was happening, remember, this was all during this war of the Second Coalition. In 1798, he wasn't much help in that war, he was out in Egypt doing all of these silly things. They were at war with Britain, that's why Horatio Nelson went and destroyed his fleet. But even after he takes power at the end of 1799 or early 1800, they're still at war. So Napoleon, he decides to take charge. So he leads the troops across the Alps into Italy. And once again, this pattern is emerging. And this one actually wasn't very clear in the beginning that it was going to go his way. The Italian campaign, it started very badly. But eventually, he was able to win against, once again, the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo and Hohenlinden. I know I'm probably not saying all of these well. But once again, through Napoleon directly leading the troops, he was able to end the war of the Second Coalition. And then the United Kingdom, or Great Britain, however you want to call it-- many times when people use the word Great Britain it's referring to the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. If you wanted to be formal, Great Britain refers just to the island of Great Britain that has England and Scotland and Wales on it, while this is Ireland. But I don't feel like keep repeatedly saying United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which was now united in the early 1800s. I'll just keep saying Great Britain. But there was just fatigue. So the war essentially ended with Great Britain as well. This is, as we said before, this was the Treaty of Amiens. But very, very, very, short-lived peace. Because in 1803, with Napoleon still in power, the Third Coalition formed. And in the next video, we're going to see exactly how Napoleon was able to once again be victorious over these powers to become essentially, in his mind, invincible.