Was Napoleon the Revolution’s heir or its gravedigger?

The short answer

• An army made by revolution. Napoleon inherited much of the military machinery that made his victories possible. Revolutionary France had expanded recruitment and opened promotion beyond aristocratic birth. Its armies used requisition and mobile formations that could move separately and concentrate for battle. Napoleon coordinated these resources under strong personal command. At Jena the Prussians faced a force able to move and assemble with remarkable speed; revolutionary institutions supplied the means, and Napoleon directed their use.
• Enemies who fought separately. Austria, Prussia and Russia had interests of their own and distrusted one another. Their combined strength mattered little if Napoleon could meet each before the others joined it. Prussia stayed out of the 1805 campaign, Austria out of the war of 1806–7, and defeated powers made separate peace. This division gave Napoleon opportunities to concentrate against forces smaller than the coalition as a whole.
• The appeal of order. A decade of revolution had given many French people something they wanted to keep: transferred land, equality before the law and opportunities for advancement. Napoleon offered landholders, the army and property owners a government capable of securing those gains. Their support helped him consolidate power after Brumaire. The promise of order was attractive to beneficiaries of the Revolution, even as his government narrowed political liberty.
• Britain’s command of the sea. Nelson's victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 came in the same fortnight as Ulm. France could win on the continent, but Napoleon could not readily cross the sea to invade Britain. Britain, meanwhile, could finance further enemies on land. The naval defeat left a powerful opponent able to continue the war beyond the reach of French armies.

What it changed

Reform and resentment in Germany. Germany's political landscape contracted from roughly 300 states to around 40. In parts of Germany, the Confederation of the Rhine brought the Civil Code, secularized lands and modern administration; it also brought French garrisons and conscription. The reforms came with foreign domination, and resistance grew. Fichte lectured in occupied Berlin on “the German nation,” and German forces would fight Napoleon at Leipzig in 1813.

A blockade that had to be enforced. With invasion of Britain beyond reach, Napoleon issued the Berlin decree in 1806 to close Europe to British trade. The blockade could work only if ports complied. Governments with an interest in commerce had reason to resist, and enforcing the policy would draw France into conflicts involving Portugal, Spain and eventually Russia.

Polish hopes and French power. Eleven years after Poland's final partition, the Duchy of Warsaw gave Poles a new state. Find its tan patch on the Vistula. About 100,000 Poles would fight for Napoleon, hoping for a fuller restoration, but the Vienna settlement ended the duchy in 1815. The hope and the disappointment both remained in Polish memory.