The project is dedicated to one of the most remarkable and dramatic periods in history - the Napoleonic Wars from 1803 to 1815. They were a continuation of the wars originally sparked off by the French Revolution of 1789 and threw Europe's armies into mobilization on an unprecedented scale. The Coup d'Etat on 9 November 1799 put France into the hands of a man endowed with a natural genius as a commander and almost unlimited ambition. The 'old order' of Europe was, at the time, in chaos and disunity, with governments operating independently of others, each engaged in the short-term pursuit of private gain and nationalist policies. These factors, together with the powerful army created by Napoleon, combined to make him lord of the European continent, part of his dream of creating a 'global monarchy', with France at its supreme head.