What factors led to Napoleon's downfall?

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• napoleons downfall was due to a number of things, these were the failure of the continental system that he implemented on the british, he didnt take it as a long term plan, the british having more funds and a superior navy also the use of Pitts Cavalry- this was the giving of funds to those who were waging war against Napoleon, and the spanish ulcer, around 200,000 troops had to be kept in spain due to his failure of defeating didnt need to take spain she was his ally, it can be argued that napoleon didnt focus on his objectives as originally he was to take portugal- a british run port not the first time he changed objectives part way through,also the weakness of his brothers who were incompetent rulers; Napoleon didnt expect spanish people to rise up using guerilla tactics,the failure of the russian invasion; his main forces were wiped out here around 300,000 men reduced to around 20,000 his campaigns were becoming ever ambitious wanted to take russia in 9 weeks almost impossible- ignored advice from his captains to rest his army for a number of weeks to wait for more supplies and reinforcements. these are the key features you can also talk about how napoleon, in the latter part of his career was more involved with trying to gain an heir to his empire from his austrian wife, he felt this was 1 of the most important tasks, he was now starting to get older and he was in bad health, supposedly at waterloo right b4 his defeat he was not present at his post he was off nursing his bowels he had big health problems also he was overworked he said himeslf he could work on four hours sleep a night but his age caught up with him. Also by 1810ish he was fighting battles on 2 fronts his armies were not as good as his previous ones large proportions were now foreign as to keep the french people happy he stopped conscription, thus causes issues with morale and dessertion also fighting on 2 fronts was a big drain physically and finacially. His enemies were wising up to his tactics as they had gained experience due to being defeated again and again, use of new tactics and also in his defeats european powers didnt see him as invincible. Hope this helps :) im doing A2 course on this at the moment.
  
  this is an edited version of my comment with some things i missed out

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  by pOpNtInG on January 13th, 2011