Napoleonic Wars

Napoleon's retreat from Moscow following the disastrous invasion of Russia. Of the half a million men he led to Moscow, nearly 400,000 died in the severe cold of the Russian winter.

The fire in Moscow, September 1812. Prior to the arrival of Napoleon and his troops in Moscow, the Russians evacuated the city and then set it alight when the French occupied it a week later. Most of the city was destroyed and, finding themselves without shelter or supplies in the face of oncoming winter, the French forces were forced to retreat.

Series of European wars (1803-15) conducted by Napoleon I of France against an alliance of Britain, the German states, Spain, Portugal, and Russia, following the Revolutionary Wars, and aiming for French conquest of Europe; see France: history 1515-1815, Napoleonic Wars. At one time nearly all of Europe was under Napoleon's domination. He was finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory over a combined French and Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) confirmed British naval supremacy during the wars.