Submission for EC Collection 2009

THE EMPEROR

He was one of the strangest “phenomenon” in the world’s history. His genius for military, recognized even by his enemies, surpassed all glories of conquerors in the past. No wonder that many wrote and nowadays still write about him: The legendary military genius, Master of Europe, Napoléon Bonaparte.
Napoleon was born in 1769, as a son of a nobleman in Corsica island (later the republic of Corsica). He went to military school in France and was trained as an artillery officer. The French revolution in 1789, which later led to the establishment of the First French republic, brought him a golden chance to prove his talent. After the Jacobins were overthrown by the anti-revolutionaries, Napoleon had had a hard time but that soon ended as the new government also needed his talent to fight against the Royalists whose dream was to bring the monarchy back to France again. And Napoleon didn’t let them down, using his most efficient weapon: canons, which he later used to suppress the rebellion and revolution of his own people. Earning the trust of the government, Napoleon marched to Italia, which at that time belonged to the Empire of Austria. There he proved his talent by victories over the Austrian army, forcing them to flee back to their country, leaving Northern Italia, especially Rome and the Pope in Napoleon’s hand. Then he marched to Austria and won several other battles, which left Austria no other choice but peace negotiation, offering Bonaparte numerous priorities. These glories gave him a big influential position in French politics. Napoleon returned to Paris as a hero.
Not long after his return, Napoleon started an invasion to Egypt, which he believed if conquered could help him reach the gate of Asia, particularly India, a colony of Britain. He met not much resistance in Egypt and soon conquered the whole territory. But at the mean time, fearing that the republic of France would threaten the monarchy of other countries in Europe, Britain started a campaign against France, forming an alliance of Austria, Great Britain, Russia, French royalists and Ottoman Empire, the Second Coalition. As a result, France suffered from several defeats and lost most of what Napoleon had conquered before.
After returning to Paris, Napoleon planned to overthrow the Republic he once protected and served, and this only took one month. He came to ultimate power as the First Consul of France, and not long later, Emperor of France. Within a year, he arranged all civil threats, getting France ready for the wars which took place in the next several years.
In 1805, Napoleon marched for Austria again, defeating the allied army of Russia and Austria at the battle of Austerlitz, breaking the Third Coalition, which had been started by Britain. At the same time, British fleet, under the control of the heroic captain Horatio Nelson, won the Franco-Spanish fleet at the battle of Trafalgar, becoming the ultimate power of the sea and simultaneously putting an end to Napoleon’s dream of conquering Britain. Nevertheless, Napoleon’s victories over Europe brought him to a position no other could reach.
A year later, Prussia, encouraged by Britain and Russia, started a campaign against France. But Prussian army, once famous for its iron disciplines, broke at the battle of Jena-Auerstedt after powerful strikes of French army. Napoleon conquered half of Prussian territory and Poland of Russia. Tsar of the Russian Empire had no other choice but signed a peace agreement and divided the Europe continent between the two powers.
In 1807, with the help of Spanish troops, Napoleon conquered Portugal. But Spanish king couldn’t stay in his throne any longer as Napoleon also invaded the country and put his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain. This led to resistance all over the country and Britain took this chance to support Spain and Portugal in their fight against the French.
Austria once again declared war with France in 1809, and thanks to good preparation, they won at the battle of Aspern-Essling near Vienna. However, Austrian commanders failed to destroy French completely and gave them a chance to regroup. Napoleon didn’t miss this opportunity and won back again at Wagram, forcing Austria to sign another peace agreement, which strengthened Napoleon’s ultimate power as the Master of Europe.
“Peace” existed in Europe continent for more than two years before Russia broke its alliance with France in 1912. Ignoring repeated advice against a campaign attacking the Russian Empire, Napoleon marched his 450,000 troops to the East. The Russians kept avoiding fights with France and retreating deeper to their territory and only accepted to battle outside Moscow. France and Russian fought a decisive battle at Borodino and two sides both suffered from great losses. Although Napoleon succeeded in winning the battle, he admitted: "The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible." As a result of this loss, Tsar ordered to abandon Moscow, leaving it at the hand of the French. Napoleon took the capital of Russia and intended to advance further. But this never happened as Moscow was burned according to Tsar’s order. French army suffered from a lack of supply and had to retreat. The harshness of Russian Winter and guerilla’s attacks along the way killed most of French army and by the end of the campaign, only 40,000 French soldiers survived.
The defeat of France in Russia gave other countries a chance to escape from Napoleon’s rule and Britain again established another coalition, the Sixth Coalition, against France. The Allied Army outnumbered French army and after the battle of Leipzig, Napoleon was forced to flee back to France. The Coalition continued to attack France and The emperor of France had to abdicate under the pressure of his subordinates and was exiled to Elba island in 1814 when the Coalition captured Paris.
In 1815, Napoleon made an escape from Elba island and soon regained control of France thanks to the favour of French troops for him. On receiving the news, the whole Europe declared war with France. Napoleon led his 200,000 troops to fight against the coming army of Britain and Prussia at the battle of Waterloo. British army, under the control of Arthur Wellesley, succeeded in withstanding repeated attacks from the French army while Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher led the Prussian army to break French army’s right flank. The defeat of France at Waterloo put an end to Napoleon’s military career. He was exiled to St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean and spent the rest of his life there.
Throughout his life, Napoleon fought nearly 60 battles (more than all the battles of Alexander, Hannibal, Ceasar…). Under his control, French army became one of the most terrifying army in Europe and earned the honour of war. In him, we see a figure of Ceasar, Genghis Khan, the image of conquerors who once shook the whole world by their genius.

Second Writing Paper in IELTS class

Topic: It is very important that children should study hard at school. Time spent playing sport is time wasted. Do you agree?

Knowledge is considered to be the key of modern life. As a result, many parents force their children to study hard at school, disregarding the necessity of physical activities like playing sports. This essay will take a closer look at the issue.

On the plus side, it is true that many excellent students who win big competitions don’t do anything but study. Since they spend most of their time studying, the amount of knowledge they can obtain surpasses that of normal students. In addition, schools these days provide students a variety of subjects, covering all fields of life, which requires a lot of time from the students if they want to keep up with others. Furthermore, this also comes from the social demand of excellent workforce for the development of the country.

Nevertheless, health is also significant for life since it is obvious that you cannot do anything long without health. Researches have shown that students, especially high school ones, suffer from very bad health conditions due to a lack of physical activities. Sports provide them a good chance to stay active, reducing bad consequences of sitting still for long hours. Also those extra activities help students to develop other skills that are necessary for their later life. What the society needs from a person may be more than just mere knowledge. Students are expected to have skills like communication and interpersonal skills, negotiation, cooperaion and teamwork, etc. Sports like football, volleyball need high level of mutual understanding and coordination between players, which offers them various ways to achieve these skills.

To sum up, knowledge is of high importance but health and other skills should not be ignored. A balance between study and physical activities guarantee a good improvement of a person.

First writing paper in IELTS class

Topic 16: Children should never be educated at home by their parents. Do you agree or disagree?

Education from the family is regarded as one of the essential instruction for children due to its contributions to the formation of children’s personality. Nevertheless, there are still people arguing that children should never get any guidance from their parents. This essay will take a brief look at the importance of home education.

The first point is, from the very days of our life, it is parents that are in charge of providing us basic facts of life. Thanks to these facts, we learn to distinguish ‘right’ from ‘wrong’, forming a solid foundation to develop our characteristics. For example, Vietnamese parents often teach their children to respect the elders by greeting them first in conversations.

In the second place, our parents also set examples for us to follow. Because children receive most of their education from their parents at first, it is easy for them to form the habit of imitating their parents. Positively viewed, this contributes a lot to the formation of our behaviours in later life. For example, children whose parents often do charity work are likely to take voluntary work at schools because they believe their parents are good people and they want to follow them.

Finally, no kind of education can be as regular as that we receive from our parents. Since we always live with our parents until we have grown up, every act of theirs affects us in different ways, giving us endless lessons about life. Even after we have graduated from school, our parents still continue to teach us through their daily activities.

In conclusion, I would argue that, for the reasons give above, education from the family is of high importance and that disregarding its role may lead to insufficiency in human characteristics formation.