Until relatively recently histories of the Napoleonic Wars were very often written from a French perspective, focusing primarily on the military campaigns conducted by Napoleon between 1803 and 1815 and on the coalitions of European states that were formed to repel him. The Wars were generally seen as Napoleon’s attempt to overturn the existing diplomatic and political order and create a new world empire in his own image. Napoleon must, of course, shoulder much of the responsibility for these years of endless conflict and for the deaths of so many men and women, both soldiers and civilians, that it caused; no amount of revisionism can absolve him of that. Besides, he is undeniably the dominant figure of the era. But it is important, nevertheless, to draw a clear distinction between the history of the Napoleonic Wars and that of the Empire or of Napoleon’s personal trajectory.