Watch Napoleon: The Man Who Would Rule Europe

During his enforced exile on the island of Elba he busied himself building forts and bridges and winning the support of the local population and making plans for a return to France. But there was to be no glorious ending to the tale - it ended in spectacular and bloody failure in June 1815, on the famous field of Waterloo.

With the Peninsular War still raging, Napoleon made a fateful decision - in 1812, the Grand Armee began an invasion of Russia. Nothing could have prepared then for what lay ahead as they marched towards Moscow and little did they know that of the half a million men who crossed the Russian border, fewer than fifty thousand would ever see their homeland again.

The Emperor's determination to impose the Continental System on the whole of Europe was the driving force behind the decision to invade Spain and Portugal. This was the long and bloody Peninsular War.

By the year 1800, Napoleon's political career was in full swing. However, as First Consul, he was hardly a man of the people - by a stroke of outrageous good fortune he even survived an assassination attempt in1800, which gave him the perfect excuse to eliminate several political enemies.

Marriage to Josephine Rose de Beauhamais did little to quell Napoleon's vaulting ambition. Now he had the opportunity to display his military talents, which he showed to full effect during the stunning first Italian campaign - a campaign that saw him win the respect of his officers and gain the love of his men, merely by ensuring that, for the first time in years, they were paid properly.

From his birth in the Corsican capital of Ajjacio in August 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte seems to have been marked down for greatness. There was little during his early years to suggest as much however for he came from an ordinary if well-to-do family and had a difficult schooling in France. Joining the military was the making of him and he soon discovered a remarkable gift for impressing people.