How the fuck did Napoleon with the shit France was at the time...

>Completely destroy the French Navy
>be the only ones to fight in the colonies
>single-handedly liberate Iberia
>b-but muh Paris

Stay mad my frog-eating friend

>Completely destroy the French Navy
In a war focused on Europe, what a brillant move
>be the only ones to fight in the colonies
In an era during which Europe was more important than the rest of the world combined...
>single-handedly liberate Iberia
Only after Russia diverted all the French attention from that theater
Before that, Britain failed 4 times (they Dunkirked at Corunna the first time and then had Wellington end up retreating to Portugal three times while trying to liberate Spain)
>b-but muh Paris
Paris is the were the war was ended while Brits were doing irrelevant shit in the south

>single-handedly liberate Iberia

>single-handedly liberate Iberia
the spanish and the portuguese were unironically more important than the British

The Russians were unironically more important in the liberation of Iberia than Brits, Spaniards and Moortuguese combined
Reminder that it wasn't before all of France's attention was driven to the East that Iberia could be retaken

Napoleon was an unmatched genius in warfare + the French could somewhat match the numbers of their opponents due to conscription

That has been Russias strategy in every war, send masses of drunk morons with weapons to fight off the enemies and hopefully win.

You all need to understand that the British bankrolled all of Napoleon's enemies. The only reason they even attempted to resist France after Tilsit was because of British financial aid. None of those states would have been able to afford any kind of army otherwise.

GUYS, stop shitposting has always and respond correctly the question

If the only reason that the french can stop his destruction was the conscription, why the monarchas didnt the same?

>If the only reason that the french can stop his destruction was the conscription
It wasn't the only reason
Conscriptions only permitted France to tighen the gap in numbers between them and the other countries combined
Military genius and superior moral also played a key role

>why the monarchas didnt the same
Because unlike France, they werent legitimate governments chosen by the people, so they feared their citizens and couldnt trust them with weapons in large numbers

>le monarchys were oppresive and exploit the people
>le monarchys dont conscript because they feared the people and will revolt

Ok my revolutionary friend

>peasants don't revolt

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peasant_revolts

Yeah sure, let weapons to the peasants of a Absolute Monarch in the late XVIII century early XIX, what could go possibly wrong?

France achieved 19th century nationalism/conscription levels of mobilization at a time when the rest of Europe was still in 18th century professional army mode.

In that list are at least 2 peasant revolts in the French Republic

>the shit France was at the time
I can't believe no one here has given the only serious and correct answer.

France had the largest population in Europe aside from Russia in those days.
France had already been the predominant military power on the continent before Napoleon came to power and had been expanding it's territory and bullying lesser countries since the middle ages, Louis XIV is a prime example of what France could do when they had an adventurous king in power.

So yes, Napoleon took charge of the already most powerful country in Europe and he used it to conquer most of it which is still an achievement but saying that France was shit and turned to god-tier status by the willpower of one man is such ridiculous logic-breaking bullshit I hope you see yourself how dumb you are.

I think OP meant by this that France was in a state of civil war
Quite impressive they managed to defeat all Europe while at the same time constatly fighting each others internally (royalist revolts, federalist internal wars, coups...etc)

Sacrificing countless civilian lives, extorting the clergy and massive third-party support from (((them))).

For sure Louis XIV was a good King to some extent, but for most of his reign, he had some pretty good ministers to help him.

in the 30 years before 1789 there had been 3000+ revolts in France

Why didn't he try conquer the Ottoman Empire? Did he fear the Turkish warrior?

He did. Invasion of Egypt was a logistical disaster though and his army was worn out by their ruthless enemy and contracted the plague. In the end he just left them to die and returned to France. This was while he was still only a general though.

I think the question is why he didn't invade the Balkans and seize constantinople. Not like the Turkish army wasn't a joke at the time. Egypt would've been easier to influence if he was ruling from Byzantium.

Why invade a country who wasn't enemies with you? Almost all of Napoleon's wars were defensive. He wasn't obsessed with conquering Europe, only defeating Britain. The problem was that Britain kept financing new armies for Prussia, Austria and Russia to attack France instead of risking their own troops in large numbers.The Ottomans never came close to fighting France in fact they were on somewhat decent terms, especially after their war with Russia around the same time (I forget which year). Napoleon would have been in a much better position had he sought Turkish help during 1812 for his invasion of Russia.

If you knew anything about warfare you wouldn't be asking dumb questions like that.

It's the same trope people transplant to Hitler and Nazi Germany.

What said is true.

France was not only in a state of civil war and extreme paranoia, they were also bankrupt, had continual successive governments and were at war with virtually every major country in Europe. It is remarkable that they managed to survive if not win.

The real secret to their success was the exceptional French officer tradition and institutions inherited from the monarchy, who had developed many military innovations in the field of artillery (which Napoleon took on board and in doing so revolutionised warfare). Meritocracy allowed them to promote exceptional soldiers to officers with considerable experience so that they avoided the incompetence of the old aristocratic officers. Levee on Masse (conscription) was a big deal but numbers don't mean anything in warfare, though all the excess manpower allowed them to develop unorthodox infantry tactics like using massed columns of infantry to act as a battering ram through enemy lines.

how the fuck did he manage to conscript that much people?

Even fucking poles, how the fuck is it possible? Only the USSR had that kind of massive conscription, but that's pretty normal because EURASIA lmao. Hitler couldn't do it since Germany is a normal european country.

France was the largest country by population in Europe at the time (not sure if larger than Russia but certainly other than them). The real reason, however, for his success in conscripting people was his reputation. Most French people saw him as a literal god and adored him. They were proud to serve in his armies and fight for him. A lot of this was down to Napoleon's extraordinary victories like at Austerlitz where he was outnumbered 2-1 and his great success in his early career (Italian campaign was his greatest), but also he was a brilliant propagandist controlling all the newspapers with the result that he was able to portray himself in this way.

Was this the first case of conscription through modern means?

Suddenly those "Napoleon was the Hitler of his time" makes somewhat sense.

Napoleon didnt instigate the conscription thing, the French Republic did

Correction, he wasn't outnumbered 2-1 at Austerlitz but still outnumbered. There was one battle where he was but I cant remember

>There was one battle where he was but I cant remember

Jena-Auerstedt

Perhaps but it is hard to exactly define what "conscription by modern means" actually means. I guess you could say it was the beginning of industrialised warfare, even though at the time the industrial revolution hadn't spread outside of Britain.

Still these troop numbers are on par with WW2 numbers

Thanks this is exactly the one I was looking for

Funny how Prussia has such a great reputation as a military power yet in the Napoleonic wars their army performed the worst out of all major countries involved. Even in 1815 they got completed destroyed at Ligny

By being a sneaky dwarf