Napoleon Bonaparte, reeling from his disastrous Russian campaign of 1812 and suffering significant losses to the Sixth Coalition in 1813, faced a decisive defeat at the Battle of Leipzig in October of that year. With his options exhausted and his army depleted, Napoleon abdicated his throne on 11 April 1814, and was exiled to Elba, a small island off the coast of Tuscany.

After approximately ten months in captivity, Napoleon executed a daring escape on 26 February 1815, orchestrated by loyal supporters and a small contingent of soldiers. He landed in France and marched triumphantly into Paris on 20^th of March, reclaiming his title as Emperor and ushering in his second reign. This brief resurgence, however, ended with his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, at the hands of the Duke of Wellington and Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The victorious Anglo-Prussian forces entered Paris on 7^th of July restoring King Louis XVIII to the French throne and effectively concluding Napoleon’s reign—later dubbed the “Hundred Days” (20 March to 8 July) in historical accounts.

Unable to flee to the United States as he had hoped, Napoleon surrendered to the British Navy and was transported to England. From there, he was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, arriving there on 15 October 1815. He spent his final years there, dying on 5 May 1821.

Source: Napoleon by André Castelot, 1991. Graphic: Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler, 1815 (Public Domain).