Napoleonic Wars (1803): Amiens breaks

Valmy (1792) and the levee en masse created a new French war machine. Napoleon's 1796-97 Italian campaign and the 1798-1801 Egyptian expedition made him first a general, then a political necessity. The 18 Brumaire coup (1799) and the 1804 imperial coronation changed the regime without ending the war with Britain.

Amiens (1802) was a pause. Malta, trade, and mutual distrust reopened the war in 1803. Spain from 1808 was different: a popular war, a British army under Wellington, and a drain Napoleon never sealed. The 1812 Russian campaign -- Borodino, Moscow, the retreat -- is the operational catastrophe. 1813 in Germany became a war of nations; Sweden, Prussia, Austria and Russia coordinated better than in 1805.

The 1814 campaign in France showed Napoleon's remaining skill and his remaining shortage of men and horses. The Congress of Vienna redrew Germany and Italy, restored Bourbons, and created a concert that managed crises until the Crimean War. Napoleon died on St Helena in 1821. The legend (bulletins, paintings, the Invalides tomb) became a political resource for later French regimes -- and a British national story about sea power and the square at Waterloo.