Wars

Napoleonic Wars List & Timeline

Campaigns and battles are organized in chronological order.

★ marks each battle’s significance (editorial rating, 1–5)

1796–1797

First Italian Campaign

Battle of Lodi (1796) — Storming the Bridge and the Birth of the Little Corporal Legend

1796-05-10 Lodi, Lombardy — the Adda river crossing (~30 km SE of Milan) ★★★★☆

A limited but mythically pivotal engagement: Napoleon stormed the Adda bridge at Lodi, sealing his grip on Lombardy while simultaneously forging the "Little Corporal" legend.

1800

War of the Second Coalition

Battle of Marengo (1800) — How a Near-Defeat Was Rewritten into a Planned Trap

1800-06-14 Marengo, near Alessandria, northern Italy ★★★★★

First Consul Napoleon was nearly beaten at Marengo and rescued by Desaix's return and Kellermann's improvised cavalry charge — then rewrote the official account three times to recast a lucky escape as a planned trap. A structural analysis of the gap between what happened and the myth he engineered.

1805

War of the Third Coalition

Battle of Austerlitz (1805) — Napoleon's Masterpiece of Situation Design

1805-12-02 Hills southwest of Austerlitz (now Slavkov u Brna, Czechia) ★★★★★

The Battle of the Three Emperors. Napoleon deliberately abandoned the Pratzen Heights to tempt the Russian-Austrian coalition into a "right-flank envelopment"; when they committed south, he struck the emptied center, split the battlefield, and won in 7 hours. Not a frontal breakthrough but a masterpiece of designing the enemy's decision.

1806–1807

War of the Fourth Coalition

The Twin Battle of Jena–Auerstedt (1806) — The Decisive Battle Was the One Napoleon Wasn't At

1806-10-14 Jena / Auerstedt, Thuringia (now Germany) ★★★★★

Two battles, same day, 20 km apart. At Jena, Napoleon crushed a force he mistook for the Prussian main army; 20 km north at Auerstedt, Davout's single corps beat the actual main army at 2:1 odds. A structural study of the resilient French corps system versus the brittle, aged Prussian command.

Battle of Eylau (1807) — The Day Napoleon's Method Failed to Deliver a Decision

1807-02-08 Preussisch Eylau (now Bagrationovsk, Russia) ★★★★☆

After four straight victories, the first battle where Napoleon's maneuver method failed to produce a decision. A blizzard erased visibility and mobility, Augereau's corps was shattered, the Russians would not break, and there was no pursuit. Murat's massive cavalry charge bought survival, not victory.

Battle of Friedland (1807) — When the Conditions Returned, Napoleon's Method Came Back Whole

1807-06-14 Friedland (now Pravdinsk, Russia) — on the Alle ★★★★☆

Four months after the indecisive bloodbath of Eylau, against the same Russian commander Bennigsen, Napoleon's method came back whole. With summer conditions restored and Bennigsen blundering by fighting with the Alle river at his back, Napoleon turned the position into a death trap — Lannes' half-day fixing action and Sénarmont's offensive massed artillery drove the Russians into the river and ended the Fourth Coalition.

1809

War of the Fifth Coalition

Battle of Wagram (1809) — The Day Napoleon's Method Turned from Art to Attrition

1809-07-06 Marchfeld plain, northeast of Vienna (now Austria) ★★★★★

Six weeks after his first defeat at Aspern-Essling, Napoleon rebuilt the Danube crossing and beat the same Archduke Charles. But Wagram was not the art of maneuver — it was a frontal, attritional battle won by mass and a 112-gun grand battery. The enemy was beaten, not broken, and withdrew in good order; losses were nearly symmetric. The turning point of Napoleon's method.

1812

Russian Campaign

Battle of Borodino (1812) — Why the Bloodiest Day Produced No Decision

1812-09-07 Borodino village (~120 km west of Moscow) ★★★★★

On 7 September 1812 Napoleon met Kutuzov's Russians at Borodino, west of Moscow — the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars, with ~70,000 down in one day. France took the ground and won tactically, but the Russian army survived intact and withdrew in good order. There was no decisive victory; the hollow occupation of Moscow and the catastrophic retreat followed. The battle where the winner was ruined.

1813

War of the Sixth Coalition

Battle of Leipzig (1813) — The Battle of the Nations, Where the Master of the Center Was Enveloped

1813-10-18 Around Leipzig, Saxony (now Germany) ★★★★★

In October 1813 Napoleon fought the Sixth Coalition for four days at Leipzig — the Battle of the Nations, ~560,000 men engaged, the largest battle in Europe before WWI. The coalition used the Trachenberg strategy (avoid Napoleon in person, beat his marshals, converge with overwhelming numbers) to turn his signature central position against him. The master of the center was enveloped, lost Germany, and was driven toward abdication in 1814.

1815

Hundred Days

Battle of Waterloo (1815) — The Day a One-Man System Failed for Lack of Redundancy

1815-06-18 Waterloo (Mont-Saint-Jean), near Brussels, Belgium ★★★★★

On 18 June 1815 Napoleon lost his last gamble. He tried his signature central position — split Wellington and Blücher (Ligny/Quatre Bras) and beat each before they united, as at Austerlitz. But the subordinates who had to execute the split failed: Grouchy could not stop Blücher, Ney threw away the cavalry in uncoordinated charges, and after Berthier's death the staff orders were vague. The method depended on the Emperor's personal omnipresence and broke in the gaps he could no longer fill.