Coalition wars of 1803-1815 that spread conscription, the Code, and a British sea-power order -- ending at Waterloo.
Educational history. Casualty figures are documented ranges. This is not operational advice, a ranking of nations, or a how-to for weapons or coups.
The Napoleonic Wars (usually dated 1803-1815) continued the French Revolutionary Wars that began in 1792. After the brief Peace of Amiens, Britain and France returned to war; seven coalitions formed and broke around Napoleon's France. Austerlitz (1805) wrecked the Third Coalition; Jena (1806) smashed Prussia; the 1808-14 Peninsular War bled France in Spain and Portugal.
The 1812 invasion of Russia destroyed the Grande Armee through battle, weather and distance. Leipzig (16-19 October 1813), the "Battle of the Nations," forced Napoleon back to France. He abdicated in 1814, returned from Elba in the Hundred Days, and lost at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 to Wellington and Blucher.
Deaths are estimated at about 3.5-6 million, including civilians and the Caribbean and Egyptian sideshows. The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) restored a conservative order that still had to live with the Code Napoleon, conscription, and British naval supremacy. English memory centres Trafalgar and Waterloo; French and German memories centre other dates.
Deep introduction
Napoleon did not invent coalition war, but he forced Europe to invent mass armies and a diplomatic congress system to contain France.
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.
Ulm and Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstedt (1806), and Friedland (1807) made Napoleon master of the German lands and imposed Tilsit on Russia. The Continental System tried to blockade Britain by land -- an economic war that created smugglers and enemies.
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.
1803-1815 coalition wars: Austerlitz, Spain, 1812, Leipzig, Waterloo and Vienna.
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02Grande Armee, British sea power, and coalition armies -- historical structures.
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03From Ulm to Waterloo as historical sequence, not a field manual.
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04About 3.5-6 million dead, scholarly range, plus economic blockade costs.
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05Napoleon, Nelson, Wellington, Blucher, Metternich, Kutuzov.
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06The Code, conscription, Vienna, and British naval order.
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07Trafalgar, Waterloo tourism, Tolstoy's 1812, and school canvases.
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