Napoleon BonaparteOne of history's most brilliant individuals, Napoleon Bonaparte was a skilled soldier and superb administrator. He was also absolutely ruthless, a dictator and, later in his career, thought he could do no wrong. Not French by birth, Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio in Corsica, having just been sold to France by the Italian state of Genoa on 15 August 1769. He attended the French school of Autun and later the military academy of Brienne. He never fully mastered French and his spelling left much to be desired. The revolutionary fever that was spreading when Bonaparte was a teenager gave a talented individual the opportunity to rise far beyond what could have been accomplished just a few years earlier. His first real military opportunity came as an artillery captain during the Siege of Toulon, where he skillfully captured crucial forts and was able to bombard British naval and land forces, eventually forcing them to set sail. Now a brigadier general, Bonaparte served in the army on a campaign in Italy, but found himself arrested and imprisoned for being an associate of Maximilien Robespierre's younger brother. With no position for him after his release, Bonaparte considered joining the Turkish army and even joining a naval expedition to Australia, but became involved with a member of the Directory, Paul Barras, who used the young man's zeal to quell a mob royalist in 1795 with the now legendary "grapeshot". With his loyalty and ruthlessness demonstrated, the following year Bonaparte took command of the Army of Italy and began a campaign that would bring him to absolute power in France and Europe. Initially treated with suspicion, and not a little contempt, by the older generals he ruled over... middle of paper... despite being branded an Enemy of Humanity by his enemies, the French people flocked to him and within a few months he rebuilt his army for the expected arrival of the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden and Great Britain. Rather than wait he launched a lightning campaign into Belgium in the hope of capturing the English, under the Duke of Wellington, and the Prussians, under Field Marshal Blucher, were caught by surprise. The plan worked, but a series of command errors by subordinates blew the opportunities offered and despite the victory at Ligny and a tactical draw at Quatre Bras, he was defeated at Waterloo. Exiled a second time, the man who ruled Europe spent his last six years on a small island in the South Atlantic called St. Helena. His death in 1821 brought relief to the royal houses of Europe and it was not until 1840 that his body was able to return to his kingdom. beloved France.