Reaching the zenith

The opening decade of the 19th century saw Napoleon at the height of his power, in control of an empire that stretched from the Channel coast to the borderlands of Russia. Only from 1809 did his ascendancy begin to decline. He was without question the dominant figure of his age, admired and reviled in equal measure by his contemporaries. Two centuries on, the debate continues about the reasons for Napoleon’s exceptional run of military victories. He had few rivals in his capacity for forward-planning, his intuitive grasp of the nature of the battlefield, and his ability to lead and motivate an army. A more critical view is that he lacked originality and was a hasty improviser who was lucky